After several years of fairly stable prices, the upward trend in F1 ticket prices that we witnessed in 2017 has accelerated this year. The cheapest F1 tickets in 2018 are offered in China and Russia, whilst Abu Dhabi and Monaco have the most expensive.

Images © f1destinations.com. Read our earlier F1 ticket prices analysis here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. Disclaimer: ranking F1 ticket prices is not an exact science. All prices in $USD. See below for information on how our rankings were calculated.

Year on year, the prices of 3-day General Admission tickets are up 13.4% in 2018 to an average of $161, whilst prices of the cheapest 3-day grandstand tickets have increased 14.3% to $264. Meanwhile, a 3-day grandstand ticket opposite the pits will set you back $637 on average in 2018, up 5.6% year on year. Some of the increases for 2018 can be explained by the disappearance of last year’s cheapest race, the Malaysia Grand Prix, and the addition of mid-priced races in France and Germany.

The average price across all ticket categories at this year’s races is a hefty $417. China has the cheapest tickets on this basis (averaging $160 across all categories), whilst Monaco has the most expensive, averaging $850. One trend that we’ve spotted is that ticket prices have been reduced in 2018 at several destinations that were already cheap (including Russia, China and Hungary) while some of the more expensive destinations (Belgium, Monaco) have increased their already high prices for 2018. Prices are largely unchanged at around half the races on this year’s calendar.

We’ve also analyzed the affordability of attending an F1 race for locals in each destination this year, with some surprising results. Excluding the anomaly that is the ‘millionaires’ playground’ of Monaco, a race weekend will set the average local back less than 3% of their monthly wage in countries such as Japan, Canada, Australia, and as much as 25-50% in less-developed race locations such as Brazil, Mexico and Azerbaijan.