Oh what a difference a few years makes. In 2008, as a recession was just beginning to bite down, it looked like F1's majority owner, the finance firm CVC, had made a disastrous move by buying the sport with $2.9bn of debt from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lehman Brothers. The loan is secured on the rights to F1 so if the sport failed to repay it, the two banks could legally take control of it. In fact, quite the opposite has happened.

Writing in the Express, Pitpass' business editor Chris Sylt reports that F1's finances have been so strong over the past few years that the two banks have received more in loan repayments and interest than CVC itself has got in profit from F1.

Since CVC acquired F1 in 2006 it has made a total of $662.7m in interest payments and repaid $762.3m of its loans. However, CVC certainly hasn't gone empty handed since F1 makes more than enough cash to pay it handsomely too. Indeed, as Pitpass has reported, over the past five years, F1 is believed to have made a net profit of $1.2bn of which around $800m flows to CVC as it owns 63.4% of the business.

However, the company which is perhaps most in need of its share of F1's spoils is Lehman Brothers. The bank provided $550m of the debt which CVC used to buy F1 and after it went bankrupt in 2008 its right to repayment was transferred to LBI Group Inc, an affiliated company which holds Lehman Brothers' profitable assets. LBI's profits go towards offsetting the debts and losses made by Lehman Brothers itself so, F1 is actually repairing some of the damage done by one of the worst offenders of the credit crunch. It doesn't get much more ironic than that and although it looked risky for CVC to buy F1 with so much debt it was in fact an incredibly shrewd move.

The initial concerns were understandable. The debt was secured by CVC at the peak of the market and its interest rate is between 2% and 3.5% higher than what is known as the inter bank lending rate - the rate at which banks lend money to each other.

The saving grace was that in the midst of the recession the interbank rate crashed in order to stimulate lending between banks. Banks had become scared that if they lent money to another bank it may go bust which in turn could send them bankrupt too. This is why banks stopped lending to each other and with limited funds at their disposal mortgage rates soared. Slashing the interbank rate was an incentive to get the banks lending again but it also had the consequence of cutting the interest payments on F1's debt.

F1 used the money it would have spent on interest instead on paying off the loan itself which is why its debt repayment accelerated. In turn it could pay bumper profits whilst RBS and Lehman Brothers got even more. Last year F1 paid a total of $397.7m in debt and interest leaving $2bn of its loans outstanding.

As Pitpass recently reported, the sport's revenues should hit $3.7bn the year after the debt has been cleared leaving an annual net profit estimated at $1.5bn.

F1's accelerating fortunes have caught the eye of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation media empire and the Italian investment fund Exor. Contrary to some ill-informed media outlets, they are not bidding for F1 but are considering whether to make a bid for it even though CVC has confirmed that it is not for sale.

F1's biggest single cost is a payment of 50% of its underlying profit to the teams as prize money. This came to $658m last year and is projected to reach $1.4bn by 2015. However the teams are still not satisfied and reportedly want this to increase when their new contract to race in F1 begins in 2013.

Last month Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali said that after 2013 "a marketing partner is needed. It can be CVC once more, but it must invest in F1." Ecclestone however thinks differently and responded by saying "they should be happy with what they've got." It is a roadblock which the teams may struggle to overcome.