Formula One, with 19 races across five continents featuring drivers from 13 different countries, is undeniably an international sport.
And yet its epicentre lies in a quiet little province near Oxfordshire in central England, which features green fields, winding roads and signposts for places with names as enchanting as Chipping Norton, Milton Keynes and the easily mispronounced Towcester.
"They call it Motorsport Valley because the majority of the teams in Formula One are based around here," said Eric Boullier, the French team principal, whose Renault marque is based in Oxford.
"Thanks to the teams, you now have a lot of suppliers who have located and developed here too. It's amazing, really."
Eight of Formula One's 12 teams are based within a 80-kilometre radius of Oxford, while approximately 75 per cent of the staff employed by the sport reside in England. According to a report published by United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI) last year, more than 4,000 British companies, which employ 40,000 people, supply the global motorsport industry.
More specifically, according to Chris Aylett, the chief executive of the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA), Formula One is responsible for 4,000 jobs and generates £2.5 billion (Dh14.6bn) in the United Kingdom alone.
Aylett said the most important business clusters provide global not local trade.
"There is no equivalent concentration of high-performance engineering anywhere else in the world," Aylett said.
"Motorsport Valley is the Hollywood of the motorsport engineering business. It is to motorsport what Silicon Valley is to technology."
Such is the interest in the area that the MIA - which registered "Motorsport Valley" as a trademark - co-ordinate package tours taking prospective investors around and providing them a glimpse behind the scenes at Formula One team factories, including those of Williams and Red Bull Racing.
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