Formula 1 held 15 Grands Prix in the first nine months of 2026, two fewer than in the same months of 2025, and its primary revenue fell 1.8 percent. Liberty Media's third-quarter release, dated 5 November, puts primary F1 revenue at $2,052m for the nine months to 30 September against $2,089m a year earlier. The same release explains why the race count and the revenue line do not move together. The season-based part of F1's income is booked as a share of the calendar, not race by race, and by the end of September F1 had recognised 15/23rds of its 2026 season against 17/24ths of 2025's.
Fifteen twenty-thirds is 65.2 percent of a season; seventeen twenty-fourths is 70.8 percent. By that measure the share of its season-based revenue that F1 had booked was 7.9 percent smaller than a year earlier, while its primary revenue line fell 1.8 percent. The release says the decline was "partially offset by underlying contractual fee increases across all revenue streams", and that sponsorship grew on revenue from new sponsors. It does not split primary revenue into its three streams (race promotion, media rights and sponsorship), so the size of that underlying rise cannot be read off the page.
Saudi Arabia is why the 2026 denominator is 23. The release says the calendar has one fewer race than the 24 held in 2025 "due to the inability to hold the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in April". The first half of the year was booked on a 22-race calendar. During the third quarter F1 announced that Malaysia would host the Bahrain Grand Prix in October, a race re-created at Sepang under Bahrain's name, and the third quarter moved to 23. Adding that race to the denominator cost something on paper: the release says the quarter's gain in media rights and sponsorship was "partially offset by the impact of the adjustment to pro-rata revenue recognition due to the increase in expected race count from 22 to 23 races".
Race promotion is the one primary stream that follows the races actually held. The release attributes its nine-month decline "primarily" to the two fewer races. Media rights fell for two reasons it names: the smaller share of the season recognised, and "one-time revenue associated with the release of the F1 movie" in the 2025 period, which flatters last year's base. Sponsorship rose despite the two missing races.
Divided by races held, primary revenue comes to $136.8m a race in 2026 ($2,052m over 15) against $122.9m in 2025 ($2,089m over 17), an 11.3 percent rise. Part of that rise is pure arithmetic. A season-based dollar spread over a 23-race calendar puts 1/23rd on each race held, against 1/24th in 2025, which is 4.3 percent more per race before any fee changes. The quotient mixes that effect with per-event promotion fees, the film's one-off and the new sponsors, and it is an accounting ratio, not a fee.
Team payments, excluding Concorde incentive payments, fell to $922m from $968m, down 4.8 percent, more than two and a half times the fall in primary revenue. The release says year-to-date team payments "decreased due to the pro rata recognition of team payments arising from the calendar variance", so the teams' line is also recognised pro rata to the calendar. Against primary F1 revenue, team payments were 44.9 percent in the 2026 nine months and 46.3 percent in 2025's. The 2025 period also carried $50m of Concorde incentive payments, listed on a line of their own; the 2026 period carried none.
Other F1 revenue rose 8.6 percent to $444m from $409m, on hospitality at recurring events, licensing and the Grand Prix Plaza in Las Vegas, and its $35m gain nearly matched primary revenue's $37m loss. Total revenue was $2,496m against $2,498m. Other cost of motorsport revenue rose 7.2 percent to $657m, which the release ties to hospitality, commissions, partner servicing, FIA fees and freight, and selling, general and administrative expense rose 13.1 percent to $268m, mainly on personnel. Adjusted OIBDA fell to $649m from $680m, the 5 percent fall the release prints (4.6 percent unrounded). Operating income rose to $450m from $433m, a $17m gain smaller than the $50m Concorde payment that weighed on the 2025 figure.
Seven races in the third quarter, against six, ran the same arithmetic the other way. F1 booked 7/23rds of its season in the quarter, 30.4 percent, against 6/24ths, 25.0 percent, and primary revenue rose 26.6 percent to $934m from $738m. Team payments for the quarter rose 23.8 percent to $422m from $341m, and Adjusted OIBDA 44 percent to $338m. The release puts the quarter's primary gain down to "calendar variability and contractual fee increases", in that order.
Eight of the 23 races remained after 30 September, 34.8 percent of the season, against seven of 24, or 29.2 percent, in the last quarter of 2025. A full year books the whole season either way, so the gap in season-based recognition closes by the end of the season if the calendar holds, and what remains of the calendar effect is one fewer event paying a promotion fee. The release does not promise that it holds: "Additional calendar changes may be necessary." By 6 November four of the eight had been run; the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang was the first. Interlagos on 8 November is round 20.