I realized F1 had built a house of cards the moment teams started rerouting cargo flights around closed Middle Eastern airspace.
This isn’t theoretical anymore. Regional airspace closures forced Formula 1 to physically navigate around a war zone. Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Syria, and the UAE all shut their skies following the February 28 attacks. Teams that once flew direct routes now take circuitous paths, burning extra fuel and time to reach races funded by the very countries under attack.
The Iran conflict exposed what I’ve suspected for years: F1’s Middle Eastern expansion wasn’t growth—it was dependency.
The Financial Architecture Nobody Wants to Discuss
The numbers tell the story F1’s PR machine won’t.
In 2025, F1 generated $824 million from promoter fees, 27% of primary revenue. The Middle East represents one of the most lucrative chunks of that category. Saudi Arabia pays approximately $55 million annually to host the championship. Bahrain contributes $52 million. These contracts don’t expire until 2030 and 2036 respectively.
But here’s what makes this dependency systemic: Gulf money doesn’t just buy race slots. It penetrates every level of the sport.
Aramco serves as a Global Partner. Emirates was too in the recent past. These aren’t small sponsorship deals. They’re the financial foundation that allows teams to operate at current budgets. When I trace the money, I see a web of interdependence that makes F1 vulnerable to exactly what’s happening right now.
The Gulf States need F1 more than F1 needs them, or so the conventional wisdom goes.
I think that’s backwards.
The Diversification Gamble
These races started as national promotional marketing events for ruling monarchies. The Gulf States long ago recognized that their petrochemical production would decrease in coming decades. They needed to invest sovereign wealth into revenue streams that weren’t dependent on oil and gas exports.
This started in the nineties but accelerated significantly in the 21st century.
Sports became one such investment opportunity. Abu Dhabi spent $40 billion constructing an artificial island for the Grand Prix, holding its first race in 2009. That’s not a typo. Forty billion dollars for a vanity project designed to raise international profile.
The model worked as long as there were oil revenues, peace, and domestic stability.
Take away those elements and the entire structure collapses.
The Warning Shot F1 Ignored
2011 should have been the wake-up call.
The Bahrain Grand Prix, scheduled for March 13, was cancelled on February 21 amid the Bahraini uprising. Crown Prince Salman postponed the race due to ongoing protests. Religious and ethnic tensions that simmer under the surface throughout the region had erupted into violence.
By April 2012, more than 80 people had died in Bahrain’s protests. Police carried out midnight house raids in Shia neighborhoods. Beatings at checkpoints. Denial of medical care. More than 2,929 people were arrested. At least five died due to torture in police custody.
F1 raced there anyway in 2012.
Government largess and economic growth can mitigate tensions somewhat. But when they flare and governments react, tranquility is shown to be a mirage. F1, MotoGP, WEC, and other motorsports series were always rolling the dice with events and investments from these countries.
The sport saw the instability and chose the money.
The Houthi Attack That Changed Nothing
Fast forward to 2022. The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
A Houthi attack on a Saudi Aramco refinery occurred approximately 11 kilometers from the Jeddah Corniche Circuit during practice sessions. Pictures showed huge balls of fire and smoke just miles from the F1 venue. Drivers could literally see the attack while on track.
A four-hour meeting followed. Drivers, team bosses, and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali discussed safety concerns. The BBC reported that among the considerations was the potential impact calling off the race might have, whether there could be delays in personnel or freight leaving the country.
Translation: F1 feared being held hostage by the Saudi government if they cancelled.
They raced anyway.
The Aramco facility that was attacked? Owned by a company that serves as a major sponsor of Formula 1 and the Aston Martin team. F1 literally brands itself with the logo of the target.
The Economic Contagion Nobody Connects
Most coverage focuses on whether races get cancelled. That misses the bigger threat.
Energy market disruptions from this conflict hit F1 through channels most analysis ignores. Asian countries, especially China, depend on Middle Eastern oil and gas. Without this fuel, their economies slow and prices increase. Natural gas serves as feedstock for nitrogen-based fertilizers. Diesel fuel powers farming equipment and trucks.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for about 20 percent of global oil supply. The chokehold interrupted global natural gas and fertilizer supplies, stranding over 1,000 ships and about 20,000 seafarers.
In Europe, higher prices cause economic slowdowns even though they don’t get as much energy from the Middle East. This impacts automotive manufacturers and sponsors involved in Formula 1.
The money supply could suddenly get tighter throughout the world, not just in the Gulf region.
The UN assesses the Iran war has already caused some $63 billion in economic losses across the Arab region. Guggenheim analyst reports suggest F1 could lose up to $200 million from cancelled Bahrain and Saudi races alone, accounting for base promoter fees plus lost sponsorship and media rights revenue.
That’s not just two races. That’s a chunk of F1’s annual business model vaporized by geopolitical reality.
The Logistics Nightmare
F1 teams had two sets of equipment staged in the Middle East, one in intermodal shipping containers and another set up in garages. Places like Bahrain became effectively inaccessible for visiting staff. This required coordination of on-ground personnel for dangerous, time-consuming cross-border road moves and re-export paperwork.
Equipment trapped in war zones exposes operational fragility.
With thousands of vessels stranded in the Middle East, the Arabian Gulf has become a massive parking lot for ships waiting for resolution. F1’s freight sits in the same bottleneck.
While the Gulf States have billions in reserves, they’ll likely need these funds to repair damage caused by the war. If attacks on petrochemical infrastructure continue or expand, countries that can’t export their product won’t get paid. Oil companies and the countries they operate in will see revenue decline.
The premium fees that made Middle Eastern races so attractive evaporate when infrastructure burns.
The Apolitical Myth
F1 maintains this position that they’re apolitical. That they just go racing.
That narrative collapses when teams literally reroute cargo flights around a war zone to reach races funded by countries whose infrastructure is being bombed.
F1 has picked a side even though they say it isn’t political. Obviously FOM, the FIA, and others won’t side with the Islamic Republic of Iran. They’ve sided with the ruling royal families of many Gulf States. These countries are Arabic and largely Sunni Muslim whereas Iran is Persian and largely Shia Muslim.
F1 effectively picked a side. It doesn’t help that these dynasties have terrible human rights records either.
A consortium led by the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy wrote to F1’s CEO warning the race had become a focal point for protests and abuses by security forces. Human rights groups accused F1 of providing invaluable PR for Bahrain’s government and helping normalize human rights violations.
The Season Finale Gamble
FOM may need to consider cancelling additional rounds in the fall. I could see the Qatar and Abu Dhabi rounds at risk if the conflict continues.
Both sit right across the Arabian Gulf from Iran. They’re well within range of that country’s missiles. Plus, as the Houthis demonstrated at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, attacks can be launched from almost anywhere. FOM has to at least consider the security environment later this year, even if major military operations end.
Given Iran’s longstanding support of proxies to carry out armed attacks, this problem could continue for a while.
If F1 cancels Qatar and Abu Dhabi, that’s the season finale, the climax of the championship, gone.
What does that reveal about the fundamental miscalculation F1 made in building its calendar architecture around this region?
The Model Exposed
They chased dollars but didn’t use sense.
FOM saw the upside of new markets, new venues, and new sponsors. All of that was great, until things started blowing up. Once wars begin, they have a bad habit of going far differently than the combatants originally anticipated.
This shows the current model is more fragile than has been presented.
While I think the war will end and stability return to the region, there has always been conflict there. This goes back centuries and is rooted in longstanding ethnic and religious conflicts. That’s the looming threat to anything in the region, including sports.
The very nature of the region is unstable, which is being demonstrated clearly now.
I’ve maintained that chasing emerging markets and big paychecks is fraught with risk, especially where there’s no organic demand for motorsport. Even relatively stable nations like India, Turkey, and South Korea couldn’t support a grand prix for more than a few years.
Many events in these new markets lack passionate fans and the atmosphere that pervades in more established markets in Europe and the Americas.
What F1 Should Learn
You go where the demand is and where there’s longterm stability.
Expanding in the United States was a wise move. Reducing events in Europe in favor of the Middle East appears to be folly. The contrast is sharp, US expansion has organic demand and stability. Middle East expansion has premium fees but sits on centuries of conflict.
I think F1 leadership will attempt to ride this out and hope things return to normal soon. That may well happen. The Iran War could be seen as a short, disruptive, but not catastrophic event.
Going forward though, there’s no guarantee things will remain stable for long.
A lot of things have to go right, peace, stability, economic growth, for the Middle East to prosper.
Take away those elements and the region becomes a difficult place to conduct business in, much less host international sporting events.
The Truth Nobody Says Out Loud
Vanity projects coupled with dazzling events designed to raise a country’s international profile are fraught with danger. When conflict erupts, that entire model is exposed as a house of cards.
No amount of money can buy passion and fan engagement. That has to come organically where a motorsports culture has been developed over decades.
F1 built its financial future on sand, literally and figuratively. The sport traded European racing heritage for Gulf petrodollars, assuming the money would always flow and the region would always be stable enough to race.
The Iran conflict proves both assumptions wrong.
Teams rerouting around war zones. Equipment trapped in conflict areas. Season finale races potentially cancelled. Economic contagion threatening the entire sponsor ecosystem.
This isn’t a temporary disruption. This is the model breaking.
F1 can either learn from this moment and recalibrate toward markets with genuine demand and stability, or they can ride it out and hope the next conflict doesn’t erupt during a championship-deciding race weekend.
Based on history, I know which option they’ll choose.
The question is whether fans, sponsors, and teams will keep accepting that gamble.
