On Sunday evening, after the Chinese Grand Prix has run its course in Shanghai and the teams pack up for the move to Bahrain for the race the following weekend, the series will also pack up its portable television studio, known as Bakersville, which is at the heart of the media that has transformed Formula One into a global sporting event in the last 30 years.

On the other side of the world, meanwhile, in the London offices of Formula One Management, or FOM, where television and commercial rights to the series are negotiated, the wait will be on to count the race’s television audience. Last year, the annual global television viewing figures for the series were slightly lower than in 2011, according to statistics released by FOM in February. This was attributed in part to a drop in viewers for the Chinese race.

As Formula One has fought to keep its audience in Europe watching the growing number of Grands Prix in Asia, it has set the Asian start times later in the day to allow for late-morning viewing in Europe. As a result, however, the races compete for local audiences with local sports and have lost local viewers.

Although the race starts relatively early on Sunday in China, at 3 p.m. local time, the number of Chinese television viewers dropped to 48.9 million last year from 74.5 million in 2011.