Formula One is a business. I've thrashed that line often enough in Atlas this year - and I'm going to thrash it again. But not quite in the usual way; after all, this is Rory's Ramblings!

We all know about the big dollars that are invested in F1: the sponsors; the drivers; the engines; the testing; the TV; and so on. And I've made the point that F1 isn't necessarily a sport, but more entertainment or business and that involves a lot of people.

And then there are the people associated with F1. Please note, I used the word "associated" and not "involved". To me, the people who are "involved" in F1 are those who are officially connected with F1. Take a look through the pits at an F1 race, and you'll see who I mean. The drivers, the team bosses, the mechanics, the designers, the engineers, the electricians ... you get the idea.

Then there the people who make their living through an association with F1.

For example, we've all seen those card shops, where you can buy cards of basketball players - they seen to be an international phenomenon. And, in various countries around the world, there are cards for their local sports codes, like soccer and baseball.

The other day, while meandering along in the street of a lovely, sunny Canberra (that's the capital of Australia - where I live), I came across a shop that, alongside the football and basketball cards, had some F1 cards in its window. It's this peripheral side to F1 that, all of a sudden, grabbed my interest.

When you look around you, particularly at an F1 race, but also just generally, there's t-shirts, polo shirts, cards, pins, shirts, team shirts, posters, stickers, bags, hats, sweaters, models (of the plastic variety, not the ladies in skimpy "outfits"), jackets, bottle holders, lighters, calendars, flags, driving suits, pens ... need I go on?

Who makes this stuff and who sells it? People "associated" with F1.

And what about the mass of media that hang off every word that falls from a driver's lips - and every word that they wish he had said? To see the F1 media corps in action sometimes makes the people that follow the activities of British Royal Family look like kittens. More people who are "associated" with F1.

[Just as a side-note, not only do we know the drivers' names, the team bosses' names, the mechanics' names, but we also know the commentators' and journalists' names. For example, Murray Walker is a "star" in his own right. There are Murray Walker Fan Clubs. I'm surprised there isn't an Internet newsgroup devoted to him ... or is there?]

All these people have a vested interest in seeing that the current position of F1 is maintained, with the media hype and fan clubs and the magazines and so on. (Indeed, we here at Atlas are part of that group.) Bernie Ecclestone is not the only person making a living out of F1, by any stretch of the imagination. But I don't think there are as many people who make as nice a living out of F1 as Bernie does!

There's a whole industry out there, trying to persuade you to part with your precious dollars/pounds/francs/marks/yen/whatever. To these people, their incomes depend on the existence and well-being of F1, just as much as the drivers, the bosses and the Bernie Ecclestones of this world.

Basically, all these people depend on us to keep F1 alive, to feed the beast. They rely on us to buy all these souvenirs. And to roll up at the races, with our tickets bought with hard-earned dollars clutched in our hands. And to sit at home and watch the races, so letting the TV stations charge huge fees for the adverts that we have to suffer through, usually right at the single most critical part of the race (assuming, of course, that your TV coverage comes through a commercial channel).

And there's an additional group you could throw in there too. The sponsors. They rely on us to go out and buy the products that we see advertised on the cars. To a certain extent, it may seem ridiculous that a sponsor would spend all that money to get their name on the side of a car in a race. But think of how many countries get that coverage. I'd bet that buying that space on the car would be much cheaper and easier than trying to buy advertising air time in all those countries.

To a certain extent, it doesn't matter if we don't buy those products on a regular basis. All it takes is for us to go into a shop, see the product, and think to ourselves "I wonder what it's really like?" The sponsorship increases the "awareness" of a product.

You might sneer at this, but I think it would be safe to say that the next (first?) time you see a bottle of Bitburger beer, you might just be tempted to buy a bottle of that particular brand rather than another "exotic" brand, purely on the basis that it is advertised on the Benetton cars. (If you are a beer drinker, that is.)

So, F1 isn't a small community made up of the teams, and perhaps the press, the spectators and the TV audience. There's line upon line of industries behind it, all of them - in their own subtle way - trying to make a profit out of F1 ... and out of us.

There's us poor fools on the streets, there's small business, there's the wholesalers, there's the manufacturers, there's big business, and there's huge international corporations.

When you come to think about it, F1 is just the tip of the entire capitalistic iceberg, permeating every second of our lives in some way. And you thought it was just motor racing!

But that's just me.