Between $313 million and $360 million, depending on the source. That is the sum for which, in 2001, the FIA handed over the commercial rights to Formula 1 for a hundred years, from 2011 to 2110. In 2025 Formula 1 generated revenue of $3.87 billion; the FIA, which governs the whole of world motor sport, closed the same year with operating revenue of €191.7 million and an operating profit of €6.7 million.

People tend to think the FIA owns Formula 1. I read it another way: the FIA is the referee, and the owner of the house is someone else. It writes the rules, checks that they are respected and decides the penalties. It does not sell the tickets, the TV rights or the championship’s sponsorships. Understanding this division is the first step to understanding the role of the FIA in motorsport, and the first step for anyone thinking of putting a budget into this sport.

In this guide, updated in November 2026, I set out what the FIA is, what it does, how it divides the work with Liberty Media and what changes, in practical terms, for a company that sponsors.

What the FIA is

The FIA was founded on 20 June 1904 as the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) and took its current name in 1946. Its headquarters are in Paris, on the Place de la Concorde, and it brings together more than 240 national motoring clubs and sporting federations from almost 150 countries. It works on two fronts: sport and mobility, meaning road safety and the rights of motorists.

On the sporting side it governs Formula 1, the World Endurance Championship (WEC), which it organises with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, the World Rally Championship, the World Rally-Raid Championship, which includes the Dakar, and Formula E, as well as FIA championships such as Formula 2, Formula 3, European rallycross and karting. Motorcycles are another world, with another federation: the FIM.

The FIA’s functions in motorsport

Within the championships the FIA has five jobs. All of them come back to one idea: the rules must be the same for everyone, and someone has to enforce them.

It writes the regulations

The technical regulations say how a car must be built, the sporting regulations how a race weekend runs. The rules go through the World Motor Sport Council, the FIA body that approves them. 2026 is the clearest example: in Formula 1 power is split almost evenly between the combustion engine and the electrical side, the fuel is 100% sustainable and the wings move; and in June 2026 the World Motor Sport Council ratified a rebalancing in favour of the combustion engine: 58/42 in 2027 and 60/40 in 2028. The cars are about 30 kg lighter, with a minimum weight of 768 kg, 20 centimetres shorter in the wheelbase, which now has a maximum of 3,400 millimetres, and 10 centimetres narrower, down to 1,900 millimetres.

It controls the finances

Since 2021 the FIA has also applied financial regulations, the teams’ cost cap. In 2026 it went from a base of $135 million, plus the inflation adjustment, to $215 million, because many items that used to sit outside it are now included: in real terms the increase is far smaller than the figures suggest. In my view it is the least talked-about function and one of the weightiest for anyone investing: it decides how much a team can spend, not how much it can bring in.

It is responsible for safety

After the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, at which Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna died, the FIA set up an expert safety committee chaired by Professor Sid Watkins. Many of today’s standards came out of that work: the HANS device, mandatory in Formula 1 since 2003, and the Halo, introduced in 2018 and now mandatory in all FIA single-seater championships. The FIA approves helmets, overalls and seats and certifies circuits.

It issues licences

Racing requires FIA licences, and Formula 1 requires the Super Licence: a driver must have accumulated at least 40 points in recognised categories over the previous three seasons, be at least 18, hold an international grade A licence and pass a theory test on the regulations. It is a sporting filter, but it also has a commercial effect: it decides which drivers a partner can bring into Formula 1, and when.

It rules on infringements

At every race the FIA stewards decide penalties and sanctions. Many of their decisions, though not all (drive-through and stop-and-go penalties, for example, cannot be appealed), can be challenged before the federation’s International Court of Appeal, the final instance of FIA sporting justice.

The FIA and Liberty Media: who decides what

Back to the opening analogy. The referee writes and applies the rules; the owner of the house sells everything that has commercial value. The agreement that holds the two sides and the teams together is the Concorde Agreement: the current one, the ninth, covers the 2026 to 2030 seasons. The commercial part, which governs revenue sharing, was signed in March 2025 by Formula 1 and all 11 teams; the governance part in December 2025 by the FIA, Formula 1 and the same 11 teams.

Anyone who wants to go deeper into the ownership of the championship and its shares will find the details in our article on how to invest in Formula 1.

The tensions of the last two years

Over the last two years the referee has made headlines of its own. In January 2025 the FIA toughened the penalties for bad language: in Formula 1 a first offence could cost €40,000, a third up to €120,000, a suspension and the loss of points. After the drivers protested, in May 2025 the base level of the fines was halved, and stewards can suspend the penalty for a first offence.

In December 2025, in Tashkent, Ben Sulayem was re-elected as the only candidate. His challengers, including Tim Mayer and Laura Villars, could not put forward a complete list: the rules required vice-presidents from every FIA region. Villars challenged the election rules before the Paris court: the judge did not suspend the vote, but sent the case to a full trial on the merits.

What does all this tell us? In my view, one thing: the referee matters, and when it changes course, the context in which a brand puts itself on show changes too.

What changes for sponsors

A company does not sign with the FIA to be in Formula 1. It signs with a team or with the championship. But the FIA sets the ground on which that investment is played out, in at least three ways.

The first is space. A shorter, narrower 2026 car offers, broadly speaking, less surface for logos: the same visibility package, on paper, is worth different centimetres from one year to the next. The second is new budgets. The 2026 engine rules brought Audi in with its own team, Ford alongside Red Bull and Honda with Aston Martin; at the same time Cadillac arrived as the eleventh team, for now with Ferrari engines and with a General Motors power unit planned from 2029. Every new arrival opens new partnership tables. The third is the cost cap. My reading: for teams that would not reach the cap without sponsors, a partner’s money buys competitiveness; for those that already hit it, it mostly buys activation and relationships.

On who sells what, the difference between a contract with a team and one with the championship is in our article on sponsoring an F1 team or the championship; the entry figures are in our guide to the cost of a Formula 1 sponsorship.

Where people most often trip up

At the table I have seen two situations come up again and again.

The first is knocking on the wrong door. A company that wants the championship’s name, a Grand Prix or trackside signage has to talk to Formula 1, not the FIA; if it wants the car, to a team. Weeks are lost working out who has the right to sell what.

The second is signing a multi-year deal without looking at the regulatory calendar. A contract signed for 2025 to 2027, to take one example, has gone through a rule change that redesigned the cars, the engines and even the grid. The clauses on space and rights need to be written with that in mind.

RTR Sports has worked in motorsport sponsorship since 1995, on every side of the table. We help companies understand who to talk to, which level to choose and how to protect the investment over time, and to sponsor in Formula 1 with a programme built around their objectives.

The FIA writes the rules, enforces them and penalises those who break them. Someone else sells the tickets. The referee collects entry fees and licence fees, but it does not sell the show. Ever.