The upward trend in Formula 1 ticket prices has continued in 2019, though at a slower pace than last year. More than half of race promoters have raised ticket prices slightly this year, while prices at the remaining races have remained largely steady. No significant or “across the board” ticket price reductions have taken place at any race on the 2019 F1 calendar.
Images © F1Destinations.com. All prices in $USD. Disclaimer: ranking F1 ticket prices is not an exact science – see below for information on how these rankings were calculated. Read our earlier F1 ticket prices analysis here: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. Support the development of our free Grand Prix travel guides by purchasing your F1 tickets from our partners, Grand Prix Tickets (GPT). We also recommend Official Ticket Packages from F1 Experiences.
2019 Formula 1 Ticket Prices: Key findings
The 2019 Formula 1 calendar features the same 21 races as last year, so average prices haven’t been impacted by new/departing races. It should also be noted that whilst prices in local currencies have risen at many races in 2019, this has been offset by an approximate 8% fall in the value of the EUR against the USD over the past 12 months – around half of F1 tickets are priced in EUR, while this ranking is calculated in USD.
- The cheapest F1 tickets in 2019 are offered in China, Russia, Japan and Hungary. The most expensive are sold in Abu Dhabi and Monaco.
- At $163, the average price of 3-day General Admission tickets is relatively stable year-on-year ($161 in 2018). The cheapest General Admission tickets are sold in China ($70) and the most expensive in Abu Dhabi ($272).
- At $264, the average price of the cheapest 3-day grandstand tickets at each event are also unchanged from last year. Hungary sells the cheapest 3-day grandstand tickets on the calendar ($105) and Monaco the most expensive ($723).
- The price of the cheapest grandstand seats opposite the pits averages $552. The cheapest seats of this type are offered in China and Russia (circa $200), while the most expensive are sold in Mexico and will set you back an eye-watering $1500.
- Comparing the price of a 3-day General Admission tickets vs the average monthly wage in each race location, the cheapest race for locals is in Japan where it costs just 2.4% of the average monthly wage to purchase a weekend ticket. At the other end of the scale, the average resident in Baku will spend over 50% of their monthly wage on a race ticket. Affordability for locals is also a significant issue in other emerging markets that Formula 1 visits, notably Mexico and Brazil.
3-day General Admission Tickets
General Admission (or roaming) tickets provide access to the venue but no reserved seat. As there is no traditional General Admission offer in Mexico, Bahrain or Brazil, we have used the prices of the cheapest 3-day grandstand ticket instead for these races.
The average price of 3-day General Admission tickets in 2019 is $163 (up from $161 in 2018 and $142 in 2017). At $70, China sells the calendar’s cheapest 3-day General Admission tickets. General Admission tickets are also priced under $100 in Russia and Japan. At the other end of the scale, the most expensive General Admission tickets are sold in Great Britain, Monaco, Mexico and Abu Dhabi (all above $200 for 3-days).
Cheapest 3-day Grandstand Tickets
The tickets compared here are the cheapest reserved seats at each race. They are not always an individual seat with a back; some races offer bleacher-style seating.
The average price of the cheapest 3-day grandstand tickets at each race on the 2019 F1 calendar is $264, which is unchanged from 2018 (and up from $231 in 2017). Hungary’s Bronze 1 & 2 grandstands are still the cheapest on the calendar ($105 for 3 days), while several other races – Russia, China, Japan & Canada – have grandstand tickets priced at under $150 for the weekend. At the other end of the scale, there are no grandstand seats in Belgium priced under $400 and prices are even higher in Monaco and Abu Dhabi.
Cheapest 3-Day Grandstand Tickets Opposite the Pits
Seats with views of the pits and start-finish line are amongst the most popular at each race and also provide a good measure for comparison. As some races have many different price categories of such seats, based on either row height or proximity to the start-finish line, we’ve compared the cheapest available at each venue. For Monaco, where the pits are not located on the start-finish straight, we’ve used prices from Grandstand T Lower (which has views of the pits). This category is new for 2019, so we cannot compare the prices of these tickets with previous years.
The average price of the cheapest 3-day grandstand seats with views of the pits is $552. The cheapest seats of this kind are sold in China and Russia (approx. $200) while the most expensive are sold in Singapore and Mexico ($945 & $1500 respectively).
Affordability for Locals
We’ve also analyzed the affordability of attending a race for locals in each destination by comparing the cost of a 3-day General Admission ticket against the average monthly salary using 2017 OECD figures adjusted by PPP when available or sourced the best available data from various internet sources. We’ve used French wage data for Monaco.
Tickets are relatively affordable for locals in most F1 host countries (costing less than 7% of the monthly average wage in 13 of 21 destinations). The cheapest races for locals to attend are in Japan, Austria and Canada, where a 3-day General Admission ticket costs less than 3% of the average monthly wage. At the other end of the scale, an F1 weekend is out of the reach for most locals in Brazil (28% of monthly earnings), Mexico (30.8%) and Azerbaijan (57.3%).
Rising Prices
Below, we’ve looked at the price trend over the last 5 years for two of the Formula 1 ticket categories we’ve been tracking, 3-day General Admission Tickets and the cheapest 3-day grandstand tickets. This is the average price across the whole calendar, expressed in $USD. Remember that average prices are impacted by year-on-year currency changes and also by the addition and removal of races from the calendar. Part of the jump in prices from 2017 to 2018 can be explained by the loss of the Malaysian Grand Prix, which offered the cheapest tickets on the calendar.
Average General Admission ticket prices have risen approximately 14% over the past 5 years from $143 to 163, whilst the average price of the cheapest grandstand at each race has increased by almost 16% over the same period ($228 to $264).
How the Rankings Were Calculated
- All prices are stated in $USD. We’ve converted other currencies to USD at current exchange rates using xe.com.
- Ticket prices are provided by our partner Gootickets.com, who also supply tickets to Formula 1. Prices do not include any markup; they are the same prices charged by individual circuits for each race. Prices do not include any handling or delivery fees.
- Tickets are now on sale for 20 out of 21 races on the 2019 Formula 1 calendar – ticket sales for the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka don’t commence until May 19, but 2019 prices at Suzuka have already been published by the track promoter and have been used in this analysis.
- Around half of the races on the current Formula 1 calendar offer at least one round of early-bird discounts on their ticket prices. Some of these discounts are very enticing (up to 30% off regular prices) and last for several months. Even though some early-bird discounts still apply, we’ve used regular prices as the basis for our calculations.
Support the ongoing development and improvement of our free Grand Prix travel guides by buying your F1 tickets from our partners, Grand Prix Tickets (GPT). We also recommend Official Ticket Packages from F1 Experiences.
Hi Andrew! Thanks for putting this together; it is really interesting to look through. Pricing for F1 races is definitely tricky – on the one hand, it’s an expensive spectacle to put on, but on the other hand, tickets can be quite expensive compared to other sporting events. My first race was the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix. At the time, I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in F1, but decided to go and hang out with my buddies who had travelled into town for the event. At race end, I was an addict, and, whether on television or live, I haven’t missed a race since.
One of the things that really hooked me that first race was the symphony of sound. They were still running V8s then and I remember going up to the fence on the straight during one of the free practice sessions and then quickly scrambling for my ear plugs as the first car flew by. It felt like my ears were about to start bleeding.
That sound is gone now, and while it has improved year over year in the hybrid era, it is still not anywhere near what it once was. And the sound was a big motivator for me to pony up for tickets.
I just got back from Baku. I was in the Khazar grandstand, and I actually quite liked it overall. You get a good view of the cars there; however, this is a very long grandstand and, unfortunately, the organizers supplied only one large viewing screen on the other side of the track. We were way at the other end of this grandstand on race day and had to use the screen directly behind us (set up for the grandstand on the other side of the track) to follow the race. That wasn’t cool to have to make a choice between following the race or watching the action on track right in front of us.
Overall, I was quite disappointed with the organization of the Baku event this year – no information on the website, super long queues to get into the grandstand before the race (missed the installation lap and almost missed the start, even tho we’d planned to be in our seats for the anthem) are things that stand out as being below expectations.
F1 is an expensive way to spend a weekend and therefore I have high expectations that the organization is going to be basically flawless. And with the much lower sound volumes, lack of overtaking, and chatter about scrapping Friday practice sessions, the ticket prices for a Grand Prix weekend are increasingly painful to bear.
That being said, I can’t see myself stopping attending live F1 events, unless the on track action from race to race continues in the direction it’s being going – less overtaking, Mercedes dominance, and a two class system where more than half the field has to stop racing in order to heed blue flags for cars that aren’t even in the same race as them.
At the moment it feels like there is too much predictability, and based on that, I’d say the price of admission is too high.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Jeremy. I personally don’t mind the lack of sound these days, but I do agree about other issues facing the sport – expensive tickets being one of them, but also the dominance of only a few teams. I prefer the uncertainty and the chance for more teams to win races. Baku is definitely on my list – to see the city as much as the race. Sorry to hear about the organizational issues
Hi Andrew I really appreciate your work man I must say. I saw the 2018 article last year but I quickly forgot about it. I have just come across this one and I’m fully convinced I really need to attend a GP weekend.
I’d like to attend a GP with my little brother. We are from South Africa and we are looking to attend a reasonably priced GP (which will include accommodation, flight tickets and all that). However, I am not sure about the seating plans to make an informed decision on which tickets to buy as we’d like this to be more of an experience than just watching the race. Also, we do not know of any travelling agencies that sell these packages so that we do not have to worry about individual things/events going on in the race weekend.
I would highly appreciate your advice for the trip. We do not have a budget yet but we’ll plan according to the prices of the packages as I’ve seen that different tickets vary from GP to GP.
Hi Apiwe, thanks for the kind words! I guess it’s not that cheap to attend any race when you are based in South Africa. I’d consider Bahrain, for example. The racing under lights is great, and the number of spectators is quite low. Perhaps you would consider a package from F1 Experiences? You can get really close to the action at races like Bahrain, when they don’t have so many fans in the programme.