From Malaysia to Monaco, we’ve ranked the prices of Formula 1 tickets in 2015. The best value can be found in Asia, with Malaysia still offering the season’s cheapest F1 tickets, closely followed by China and Japan. At the other end of the scale, the most expensive tickets are sold in Britain, Monaco, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.
The prices of Formula 1 tickets to most of this year’s 19 F1 destinations are unchanged from last year. This is probably the best we can hope for in the absence of major change to F1’s business model, which sees race promoters pay hefty annual fees (as much as $50-60m USD) to the F1 commercial rights holder for the privilege of staging their race. It’s these fees that explain why F1 is in danger of losing more of it’s classic European races (which cannot afford to pay such high fees) and why F1 fans pay so much for the privilege of watching their sport live.
Expressed in the home currency of each event, the majority of ticket prices were frozen between 2014 and 2015. A small number of race organisers did raise prices (e.g. Australia, Canada, Britain), but only by very small margins. In general, the increases were also applied to higher priced Grandstand tickets rather than cheaper General Admission tickets. Apart from small downward adjustments (and new early-bird discount initiatives at some events), no event saw any significant across-the-board reduction in ticket prices.
When expressed in USD, prices for the cheapest three-day General Admission tickets are around 10% cheaper than last year, but this can be explained by the strength of the greenback against most major currencies during the past 12 months. On the flipside, prices for the same tickets in EUR are around 10% higher year-on-year due to the weakness of the Euro.
- The average price of the Cheapest 3-day General Admission tickets at the 19 races in 2015 is $137 USD (down from $154 in 2014). Malaysia offers the cheapest tickets at just $22 USD, while the most expensive tickets are offered in Abu Dhabi ($271 USD).
- The average price of the Cheapest 3-day Grandstand tickets in 2015 is $234 USD ($256 in 2014). Malaysia is cheapest ($78 USD), Monaco the most expensive ($482 USD).
- This year, we also analyzed the prices of Pit Straight Grandstand tickets, which cost an average of $626 USD and range in price from $398 USD in Bahrain to $1250 USD in Mexico.
Other findings:
- The cheapest tickets on the 2015 European F1 calendar can be found at the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest, the most expensive in Britain and Monaco.
- Prices for the returning Mexican Grand Prix range from a reasonable $100 USD for 3-day General Admission tickets to an eye-watering $1250 USD for tickets in the Main Grandstand.
- ‘Free Friday’ – in which fans can sit in any grandstand they wish on the first day of the weekend – is offered at seven races in 2015: Malaysia, China, Spain, Britain, Hungary, Italy and Japan.
- Whilst we have focused on the prices of 3-day (or ‘weekend’) tickets in this ranking, more than half of the races in 2015 do offer fans the option of purchasing single-day tickets.
This ranking was first published last year, see 2014 F1 Ticket Prices Analysis. Due to different pricing strategies for each race – many promoters offer a series of early bird discounts – as well as the different time when tickets go on sale, ranking F1 ticket prices is not an exact science. We have based this ranking on prices as at May 1, 2015, some of which still include early-bird discounts (prices are retrospective for the first four races of the year, which have already been concluded).
How the rankings were calculated
- Prices were taken from the official ticket supplier for the event (normally the circuit’s website) and don’t include any handling or delivery fees.
- Conversions to USD were done using prevailing exchange rates on May 1, 2015 at xe.com.
- General Admission tickets are not available in Bahrain, Japan or Brazil. For these races, we used the prices of the cheapest 3-day ticket instead.
- Prices for 3-day Pit Straight Grandstands are based on the best available regular (non-corporate) tickets opposite the pits/start-finish line at each race.
