[David70]

I have been to two F1 races at Indy and one at Austin and find it too expensive to do it often. At Austin, $300 a ticket for me and wife (includes practice, qualifying, and race) then $200 for parking pass and it is $800 to see a race and wife doesn't really care to be there. Add in food, travel, hotel, etc. and it is a high dollar vacation.

F1 like other professional sports seem to justify the price based on their costs but their problems are really irrelevant to me. Like going to a restaurant that is really overpriced for what you get, then having them blame it on lots of managers and expensive rent. Whatever the problem, as long as there are other alternatives for my leisure money, they will have to compete with these alternatives.

I think it is a long term mistake to just have more countries willing to spend the money, like Qatar, when the real fan base in some of these countries is really small.