The magazine, F1 Racing, has had its calculators working overtime and has come up with some facts about Formula One finance. Most of us could have worked out that Formula One spends £1.5 billion a year, but we haven't sat down and done the sums. F1 Racing has done that and the figure of £1.5 billion hits you between the eyes. There are countries whose annual GNP is less than what is spent to put on one race.

It's one of those articles that have been begging to be written, and my reaction was to curse that I hadn't thought of it. Nice one, guys.

Under British law, all company accounts have to be lodged in Companies House, the official UK government register of UK companies, and most F1 teams are based in England. F1 Racing got much of its information from this source, so the piece has a firm foundation. There seems nothing wrong with the supplementary sources, the informal information every journalist picks up, because everything fits.

I would not dream of poaching other people's work, but a press release was issued. F1 Racing paid an agency to assemble a story about their story and to send it journalists in the hope they would get a mention. It worked in this case, didn't it? I have mentioned the name of the magazine three times already. (Four times, but who's counting - Ed)

Top spender is Toyota on £290 million, followed by Ferrari on £250 million. Renault won the 2005 World Championship spending a mere £166 million, while Minardi got by on just £29 million. The Minardi budget sounds modest until you realise that it cost £750,000 to put one Minardi on the grid for one race.

On average, a single lap of testing, not including salaries, costs £720. That figure does not include the cost of researching, and making, new aerodynamic tweaks, most of which are junked. It does not include the cost of taking a test team to a circuit. It is £10 per second in wear and tear just on engines, tyres and brakes.

About four years ago, an F1 team was testing at Silverstone. The driver ended in a gravel trap. When the car was back at the pits, the engine was taken out and everything checked, you do not want bits of gravel in the system. The engine was put back and the driver went out again. He was brought in after one lap and the engine was changed. The original engine was taken out and was sent to the maker.

The team's agreement with the engine supplier meant that engines were run for exactly 300 kms, and that it is what had just completed. The engineers at the factory had to know that when they stripped the engine and took measurements of the wear of components. That is how precise Formula One has become. That is why engine makers were able to make the 'two race' engine, it was because they had all the data. They knew what components they had to make that bit stronger.

It perhaps explains that a road car engine which has been eight times around the circumference of the planet, as mine has, is no longer a rare event.