£232m to put Schu in pole position

"And look at ballast. It costs each team millions of dollars to make their cars as light as possible. And then they use the densest, most expensive materials in the world to bring them back up to the minimum weight limit.

"Think about that. When you try to explain it to normal people - which F1 people aren't, of course - they think it's mad."

Figures obtained by F1 Racing magazine suggest the Formula One circus of 10 teams last year threw £1.38billion into a money pit.

Ferrari were by far the biggest spenders thanks to backing from a raft of blue-chip sponsors including Marlboro, Fiat, Vodafone, Shell, Bridgestone and Olympus.

Incredibly, the Italian team's budget-made a provision of £38.36m for testing, more than twice the cost of actually going racing. Ecclestone has hit out at the amount of money teams spend putting cars through their paces in front of empty grandstands during midweek testing.

He wants to see that cash diverted into more Grands Prix and next year there could be as many as 19 races on the Formula One calendar.

Another big consideration is the cost of attending each Grand Prix.

Long gone are the days when a couple of greasy mechanics would build and repair racing cars.

A team will these days transport an army of up to 100 people to look after the cars and engines and supply support management, public relations and catering.

The average salary of a Formula One worker is £45,000. But it is the drivers at the front of the grid who really coin it in.

Schumacher is understood to bank an annual retainer from Ferrari worth just over £22m. Yet, if there is a case for money being well spent, his wage packet is surely it.

Talent such as Schumacher's is virtually priceless, as he will undoubtedly prove on Sunday.