While Lewis Hamilton may be a three-time Formula One world champion in the process of attempting to become the first British driver to win a fourth title, his racing has, for the past week, played second fiddle to the rather less glamorous clamour of the financial pages headlines.

His second place at Monza on Sunday was second-placed itself to the news that the sport was being sold – and the attention this has attracted reflects the real driving force behind F1: money, and lots of it.

F1’s financial structure is at best opaque and, at worst, torturously convoluted, but what is crystal clear are the numbers involved and hence the interest in CVC Capital’s sale of a controlling stake in the sport to Liberty Media Corporation for $8.4bn (£6.3bn).

The sport generates around £1.1bn a year in revenues, from a combination of a TV deals, sponsorship (Heineken came in this year for an estimated $150m over five years), corporate hospitality and race-hosting fees. And it is a figure that has been rising steadily since 2003, happily overtaking economic downturns. F1, it seems, is the sport that just keeps paying out.

It certainly did for CVC. In 2014, the company had made $8.2bn since its initial investment of $2bn in 2006. The sale will likely make it the most profitable deal in the investment house’s history.

At the head of this remarkable bucking of global financial doom and gloom has, of course, been Bernie Ecclestone, the chief executive of the group that holds the sport’s commercial rights. It has been his expansion into new markets that has put the hammer down on F1’s profits. Around half of the revenue is from the fees circuits pay to host races. The sport’s massive global appeal – 450 million viewers – has made it hugely popular with countries that want to put themselves on the map and promote a positive image – often in the face of noticeably poor public perception. But F1 is not deflected by the complaints of Amnesty International. Azerbaijan, Russia, China, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Turkey and Singapore have all joined the calendar in the past 20 years and they have paid handsomely to do so – Singapore and Abu Dhabi around $65m. In addition, the canny Ecclestone builds an escalator clause into most of the contracts that ensures a 10% rise in the fee every year.

Bernie Ecclestone: what is his future? Photograph: Tony Marshall/PA

The new owners will doubtless expect more of the same, but how they go about it may differ. CVC’s hard-nosed milking of the sport for money has been heavily criticised and there is optimism that a media company will put more effort into building F1’s popularity, after falling TV ratings. Indeed, whether the 85-year-old Ecclestone, who has run the business of the sport since the late 70s, remains in place is yet to be seen.

Hamilton’s championship campaign is big news, but the sport’s biggest deal in decades looks set to be signed.