the money side of F1 you might not have heard about, entry fees and payouts

to compete in 2016, Mercedes had to pay the FIA an entry fee of $4.9 million in two components.

The first is a flat fee of $516,128

The second is calculated by multiplying the number of points the team scored during the 2015 season by $6,194.  “if you score a lot of points, the entry fee for next year is huge.”
the better a team performs, the more it has to pay just to enter the championship.

The price of success is such that although the winning team has to pay $6,194 per point, its rivals are only charged $5,161. It means that Mercedes’ fee is nearly two times higher than that paid by Ferrari, which came second in the standings.
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F1 rewards the best performers and the longest-standing teams.

At the core of F1’s prize money is payment to the teams of 47.5 percent of the profit of the series. This payment is divided into two, with one half split among the top 10 teams in the championship on a sliding scale. The other half is split evenly and only goes to teams that have finished in the top 10 in two out of the past three years.

This bonus pot is known as the Constructors’ Championship Bonus fund and it comes to at least $100 million annually. It is guaranteed regardless of the results that the teams achieved the previous year.

http://autoweek.com/article/formula-one/850-million-f1-question-why-ferrari-red-bull-receive-more-prize-money-mercedes

The Economics of Motorsports: The Case of Formula One By Paulo Mourão

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And Ferrari has a provision granting it a right, as the "longest standing team" that has competed in the World Championship for the greatest number of seasons since 1950, to a particular payout.

In 2017, it was 68 million in 2017.

Ferrari is paid that much to keep racing. Check the top of this post again... it costs around million in fees to compete in F1. Ferrari is still over 60 million in profit annually, to keep racing. After all costs of racing... and realizing that Ferrari doesn't have to advertise to sell cars, and sells a lot of merch... it's a profitable enterprise for them to remain in F1. If they stop, they'd lose a lot of built in revenue, and then, perhaps actually have to come up with a marketing budget.

https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/trawling/

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How successful is F1? In pure profits? So much that the largest landowner in the USA, is the guy that owns F1....

Liberty Media chairman John Malone has 2.2 million acres across the country

Malone owns Silver Spur Ranch in Wyoming and the TO Ranch in New Mexico and two ranches in Colorado. He surpassed fellow media titan Ted Turner for the title of largest private land owner in the country back in 2011. Turner checks in at 2 million acres.

http://autoweek.com/article/formula-one/libery-media-f1-owner-john-malone-tops-annual-list-us-private-land-owners

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Bernie Ecclestone has become a billionaire, not by inventing something or creating something. He took a sport that already existed and saw its potential before anyone else even gave it a thought. Over the years he has taken the product that is Formula One and developed it into the worlds second most successful sport. Ecclestone has gone from relative poverty to crossing the globe in his private jet and mixing with celebrities and statesmen alike.

how did a poor kid with a housewife mom and a fisherman dad come top own F1 and become incredibly wealthy, and internationally famous?

(the article was written without an editor, and if negotiations and negations are interchangeable, this writer was a genius, if not, the writer should be shot)

sport needs him more than he needs it. He protects the teams investments, resolves disputes and manages negations. Others have claimed that the sport would be more profitable without him and that Ecclestone is out of touch

https://www.thegentlemansjournal.com/bernie-ecclestone-how-one-man-came-to-own-a-sport/