Last week's news that the Indian conglomerate Sahara had invested £63m ($100m) for a 42.5% stake in Force India surprised a lot of people and not only because team principal Vijay Mallya, completely truthfully, said five days earlier that he was "shocked to read a media report that I am selling the Force India Formula One team. This is completely untrue."

The headline which grabbed most media attention was the fact that it puts a £149m ($235m) valuation on the team. Surprisingly, it is even higher than the £127m (€145m) value of Williams, F1's only listed team, at its closing price on Friday of £12.70 (€14.50) per share.

The Force India investment once again raised the question of why F1 teams are worth so much. Armed with data from the teams' accounts, Pitpass' business editor Christian Sylt answers the question.

A total of 8 of the 12 teams are based in the UK meaning that they file publicly available accounts which give great detail on their finances. The most recent year with a complete set of UK team accounts is 2009 and they show that the most profitable team was Brawn which made a net profit of £98.5m. At the other end of the spectrum, Force India lost the most money by making a £40.3m net loss.

Generally, the directors of F1 teams run them to break-even (i.e they make neither a profit nor loss) which involves spending whatever is available to them. They do this in pursuit of victory on the premise that it is better to win and make no profit rather than make money and do badly on track.

Nicole Scherzinger and Lewis Hamilton have reportedly broken up, according to People magazine.

The former Pussycat Doll and "Dancing with the Stars" winner started dating Lewis Hamilton, a Formula One World Championship winner, in 2008.

The couple had reportedly been having difficulty with a long-distance relationship.