Four of the Formula One season’s seven remaining races will be run in Asia, starting with the Singapore Grand Prix this weekend. But as the series has expanded over the years into Asia, home to six of the 20 races this season, it has also lost some of its main Asian financial backers of the past — notably the Honda and Toyota car companies, which had owned teams but left the series citing the global financial crisis.

The Asian presence remains a large and disparate one, nonetheless: The Caterham team may be named after a British sports car, but it is owned by the Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes and is based partly in Malaysia, with Malaysian money pouring in; a Japanese driver, Kamui Kobayashi, races at the Sauber team and is proving to be one of the best Japanese drivers to have raced in Formula One; the HRT team has an Indian driver, Narain Karthikeyan, and there is also an Indian-owned team, Force India.

For the first time in the series’ history, a Chinese driver drove a Formula One car during a Grand Prix weekend, in the Friday morning practice session at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza two weeks ago. That driver was Ma Qing Hua.

“I feel very lucky to be the first driver,” he said, “and I am very proud of my country, China, it is the first time at this very high level of formula racing.”