F1's vital statistics

$400 million was the budget rumoured to be at the disposal of Ferrari in 2004. In comparison, Minardi was reckoned to be operating on just $40 million.

Motorsport Valley is the name for the area in England that's effectively the global centre of the F1 industry. Most of the teams and their suppliers are clustered around the Midlands - around 4,000 companies in all.

An F1 car weighs half as much as a standard spec Mini.

80,000 parts make up the average F1 car. If it were built 99.9% correctly, it would still start a race with 80 things wrong.

$5.5m was the amount teams were believed to have been 'compensated' for attending this year's French and British Grands Prix. Under the Concorde Agreement, teams are only committed to 17 Grand Prix a year. However, with the 2005 championship stretched to 19 races, the payments were made to cover extra logistical costs.

Eddie Jordan received $60m for a 40% share in his company from venture capital company Warburg, Pincus & Co in 1999 - the first major deal of its kind.

$1,400 per km is the amount it costs to run an F1 car at races and tests, and that's just for oil, fuel, tyres and wear-and-tear. This figure doesn't include the costs of test cars, freight, transport or salaries.

JS4 was the tiny city car designed and marketed by Formula One constructor Guy Ligier. It soon became France's best-selling microcar, shifting some 7000 units in its first year on sale.

38,500 full- and part-time jobs come from the UK motorsport industry, which includes 25,000 engineers

Ayrton Senna was one of the first drivers to turn his name into a brand. A Senna-branded Ducati motorbike cost $19,700.

59-year old Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, founder of energy drink company Red Bull and worth $1.4bn, snapped up the Jaguar F1 team for $1. It stopped the debt-laden operation closing, and renamed it the Red Bull F1 team.

5.451 km is the length of the Shanghai Grand Prix circuit

1968 was the year sponsorship entered F1. Lotus fielded its Type 49 car under the red-and-white livery of Gold Leaf Team Lotus - Gold Leaf was the name of a brand of cigarette made by John Player.

$330,000 is the cost of a single F1 engine. In 2004, the ten teams went through around 170 of these, bringing the total spend to a staggering $56,100,000

$925,974 was the sum seven times world champion Michael Schumacher was reported to be earning each week in 2004. At the other end of the scale, Jordan driver Nick Heidfeld was reportedly earning $28,370 a week.

$5.25bn per year is the sum that the UK F1 industry's engineering sector turns over, more than half of which comes from exports. The creative side - events management, marketing and sponsorship - is worth a further £3bn per year.