Formula 1 racing is among the all-time most popular motorsports internationally. There are few other motorsports that have such a dedicated fanbase, and the teams in F1 have incredibly loyal followers. All Formula 1 fans enjoy showing their support for their teams by wearing team merchandise but getting genuine merch at affordable prices is a challenge. Where is the best place to purchase F1 merchandise?
Formula 1 merchandise can be bought from online stores and at race events, but the best place to buy F1 merch is directly from your team’s online store. This is the best way to ensure you purchase genuine merch and to guarantee that the proceeds of your purchase will go towards supporting the team.
Buying F1 merchandise is the best way to publicly show your support for your favorite Formula 1 racing team but finding genuine merchandise can be a challenge. There are several avenues for buying F1 team merch, but which are best? Let’s find out!
The Best Places To Buy F1 Merchandise
Buying Formula 1 merch is a challenge because there are so many unofficial stores, illegitimate items, pirated items, forged items, and even stolen items available on the market.
Every true F1 fan wants to be sure that the money that they spend on buying F1 team merch is well spent of high quality, official, legitimate merchandise that will help to support their favorite team and be a badge of honor to wear on race days, rather than a sad misrepresentation of their beloved team.
The difficulty of buying genuine F1 merchandise leaves many F1 fans wondering where the best places to buy these items are and how to buy the best possible merch for their money.
Let’s take a much deeper look into the best options for buying F1 merchandise and explore the best ways to purchase legitimate Merch items that will support your favorite F1 team.
Official Formula 1 Team Stores
Every Formula 1 racing season has ten competing Formula 1 teams. Each team has two drivers, and every team has its own set of excitable fans that are incredibly loyal to their team.
Every team that competes in Formula 1 has its own merchandise store. These stores are generally accessed online via the teams’ websites. These online stores are the best place to buy merchandise from your favorite F1 team, as the store is set up directly by the team themselves.
This means that everything sold from these official online team stores is genuine, legitimate Formula 1 merchandise, and all of the proceeds of your purchase will go directly to supporting the tam.
These online team stores are official, safe to use, and offer genuine, high-quality merchandise. The only drawback to buying from these stores I that they tend to be more expensive than buying from third-party retailers or from local motorsport stores.
The advantages of purchasing merch from these official stores are that you are guaranteed good quality items, good service, speedy turn-around times, and a very wide selection of official merch.
Every Formula 1 racing team has its own online merch store on its official website, but not all stores are equal.
The larger teams such as Mercedes have very extensive merch stores containing a wide array of items such as official team apparel such as caps, hoodies, shirts, beanies, and jackets, teamwear that includes apparel specific to each driver in the team, and even novelty gift items such as an official Mercedes F1 Monopoly set.
These larger stores contain items such as key rings, face masks, posters, sneakers, sunglasses, mugs, water bottles, umbrellas, flags, backpacks, notebooks, and even branded Rubik’s Cubes.
The smaller stores hosted by, the smaller teams in the sport may not be as extensive and are less likely to include such a wide range of accessories, but every team store is sure to carry shirts, caps, posters, and other various items of team apparel for fans to wear proudly on race days to show their support.
Another advantage of purchasing from an official team store is that the store is likely to offer worldwide shipping. This means that you can buy merch from anywhere in the world, rather than the limited region delivered from other online merch stores.
Some Formula 1 teams set up booths or small stalls at Formula 1 race events to sell merchandise. These are viable options for purchasing genuine F1 team merch, but the products are likely to be significantly more expensive, and there will be far fewer items to choose from.
Official Online Stores
While each Formula 1 racing tame hosts its own official merchandise stores, there are other official F1 merchandise stores that carry genuine official merch.
Purchasing F1 merch from online stores other than the official team store can be risky, but there are exceptions to this.
Some online stores are official and genuine and are an excellent source for purchasing high-quality, genuine Formula 1 merchandise.
For example, one of the best online stores for purchasing merch other than official team stores is the official F1 website.
F1 is, after all, an organization and is not limited to only racing teams. This means that Formula 1 as an organization has its own website, and this is one of the best sources for purchasing merch.
The official F1 online store is crammed full of official Formula 1 and Formula 1 racing team merchandise. The full range from each team is available in the store, proving every fan with a very convenient location to purchase merch from their favorite team.
The merch is well regulated, international shipping is available, and much o the proceeds go to the respective Formula team.
This is one option for an excellent online store to use, but there are others available. Your country may have a local merchandise importer that has its own website, which will provide merch in your local currency and reduce shipping costs.
There are many official stores available online, but not all stores will have the full range of team products, and the prices from these stores will fluctuate.
Most of these stores are safe, but it is best to avoid small third-party online stores. These often sell a cheaper knock-off version of the original merch that is not good quality and generally not worth the money that you pay for the items and the cost of shipping.
Be very cautious when purchasing Formula 1 merch online, and only use official sites and retailers to avoid purchasing cheap counterfeit products that will do nothing but disappoint.
Motorsport Stores
Online stores are a good way to buy merch, but the trouble is that you are never sure of the quality of the items you purchase, shipping costs are expensive, items get lost in transit which creates the ever-looming dread of the possibility that parcels may not arrive, and delivery times can be very long, leaving you waiting hopelessly for your merch to arrive.
The only way to circumvent these problems is to visit a physical store and purchase your F1 merchandise in person. This is an ideal way to be sure of the quality of items that you are purchasing, and it is the best way to know the final cost of the merch before you purchase it, as there are unlikely to be any hidden costs with the purchase.
Motorsport stores are not in great abundance in every city of the world, but there are bound to be at least one or two within driving distance, regardless of where you are in the world.
These stores are a good way to buy merch regardless of which F1 team your support, as they are likely to carry merch from every team.
The selection of merch may not be as wide as the range available from online stores, but the joy of visiting a physical store is that you get to speak to a real person who will probably be able to order any item from the teams’ merch range, even if the store does not currently have it in stock.
This is a good way to support your team and support local businesses at the same time, without having to deal with any of the inconveniences and uncertainties of making online purchases and shipping internationally.
The price of F1 merch at a local motorsport store may even be less than the online prices, as the store may have bought items in bulk to secure a better price for customers. This may only apply to quick-selling items such as caps, but the lower price is still a welcomed sight regardless of the item.
Formula 1 Race Events
Online stores and local motorsport stores are some of the options available for purchasing F1 merch, but there are other avenues available as well.
An obvious place to buy Formula 1 merchandise is to purchase items at a Formula 1 race event. Every Formula 1 race event is loaded with booths, stalls, tents, and kiosks that sell official Formula 1 team merchandise.
Most of the stalls selling merch are official team stores that only sell merch for one team, but there are some stores that offer merch from all or several current Formula 1 teams.
Some stalls sell general Formula 1 merchandise, including merch related to Formula 1 racing legends of the past, such as former racing drivers and former F1 racing teams. These are excellent stores to shop if you are an F1 history buff or if your favorite driver is no longer on the grid.
One of the advantages of buying merchandise from a stall at an F1 race event is that the items are sure to be genuine merchandise items. F1 events are very heavily regulated, and no pirated items are allowed to be sold at the events.
Another advantage of buying merchandise at an F1 event is that there should be plenty of items to choose from. Every team will have some merch available, and there will be a good number of each item available.
The best reason to buy F1 merchandise from a race event is the fact that you will go home with a significant souvenir from the race. Buying merch from a race will grant you the right to say that you were there, and if the race turns out to be one of the greats, you will always have something to remember it by.
Some of the drawbacks of buying merch at a race are the long queues everyone has to stand in t buy something, there are only a limited number of each item, and they generally sell out quickly, especially if they are more affordable.
The biggest downside to buying merch at an F1 race event is the fact that all of the merchandise available to buy is shockingly expensive. It is easy and likely to spend hundreds of dollars on a single item. This means that you will probably be forced to choose only one item to take home, supposing that you are able to afford to purchase anything at all.
Legitimate Formula 1 Collectors
Buying Formula 1 merchandise, accessories, and memorabilia online, from local stores, or even from race events is a simple way to buy current F1 products, but what if the stores run out of the item that you had your eye on? What if the stores no longer sell that one item that you have saving for? Or what if you are hunting down a classic piece of F1 merch that is no longer available for retail sale?
In these instances, the best route is to source a legitimate Formula 1 merchandise collector. These avid F1 fans are collectors of all things F1. Some of these collectors focus on specific teams, but some will collect everything Formula 1 related.
These are the best vendors to approach if you are looking for a very specific Formula 1 item. These collectors generally keep merch in very good condition and tend to only collect the best quality items, so you are likely to get a good item in good condition.
The trick here is to find a collector that is willing to sell parts of their collection and to find the right price that suits both buyer and seller for the item.
Buying from F1 collectors can be very expensive, especially because the collector will understand the value of the item. The more rare or older the item, the more it is likely to cost, so be sure to prepare yourself for the high prices.
Is Formula 1 Merchandise Expensive?
Formula 1 merchandise is special for true fans of the sport. Buying and wearing merchandise is a way to support the teams of the sport, and it is a way to declare your allegiance and support to the rest of the motorsport community.
For these reasons, almost all Formula 1 fans spend some money on buying merch from their favorite team, but making these purchases is easier for some fans than others.
The biggest problem with buying Formula 1 merchandise is that it is expensive. Most F1 merchandise consists of apparel and accessories, many of which are not higher quality than you may expect from a standard sporting goods store.
The prices of simple items such as polo shirts are astronomical compared to standard sportswear, and the accessories can be ludicrously expensive for what they are.
Standard polo t-shirts can cost anywhere from $50 to $350, depending on the team. The larger and more prestigious the team, the more they tend to chard for merchandise. This is bad news for fans of teams like Ferrari, as while this team is a Formula 1 legend, the merchandise is particularly pricey, even in the world of F1.
Let’s do a brief comparison of the prices of a standard team polo shirt sold by each Formula 1 team in 2021 to plainly demonstrate the kind of prices that they charge for merchandise.
Comparing Formula 1 Teams Merch Store Prices
The price of a basic polo shirt sold by each Formula 1 team in 2021 is:
| Formula 1 Team | Price Of A Team Polo Shirt |
| Mercedes | $85.50 |
| Red Bull | $50.38 |
| Ferrari | $105 |
| McLaren | $78.45 |
| Alpine | $59.86 |
| AlphaTauri | $77.33 |
| Aston Martin | $86.70 |
| Williams | $72 |
| Alfa Romeo | $89.66 |
| Haas | $85.50 |
All of the prices in the table indicate the current price in USD of the standard polo shirts sold on the official online store of each current F1 team in 2021.
This price indicates the least expensive polo short from each store, but the prices range up to $350 in some instances.
These prices do not include the excluded cost of international shipping, which can be expensive depending on where in the world you live.
The most affordable store overall is held by McLaren, but teams like Mercedes and Williams have very affordable merchandise stores as well.
The most expensive store by a large margin is the store held by Ferrari. The merch on the Ferrari store is very expensive, even by F1 standards, but the store does contain items from Ferrari’s high fashion clothing line and other very expensive items.
Mercedes has the most extensive store with the most available items compared to the other 2021 F1 racing teams.
Why Is Formula 1 Merch So Expensive?
The prices in the table above are to indicate the starting price of one of the most popular items in Formula 1 merchandise. The team polo shirt sold by each team is a standard merch item that is worn by many drivers and bought by many fans.
These prices are displayed in order to provide a rough idea of the prices that F1 merchandise is sold for.
There are more affordable items in the stores, but apparel is a very well-selling item in every store. With the varying price range and the wide variety of items available on F1 team stores, many fans find themselves wondering why F1 merch is so expensive?
The simple answer is that Formula 1 merchandise is so expensive due to the high demand for the products and the limited supply of the products.
Formula 1 merchandise is only sold in very limited ways and is very restricted and highly controlled. This means that the products cannot be very easily or commonly attained, even though there is a significantly large number of Formula 1 fans that are actively seeking to buy the items.
These factors, along with the exclusivity and status of Formula 1 symbols, merchandise, and accessories, make F1 merch some of the most expensive merchandise in motorsport.
It is an unfortunate truth but finding affordable F1 merchandise is very difficult. There are some items that are more affordable than others, but most fans would rather have a team shirt than a team keychain.
The cheapest way to buy F1 merchandise is to buy from a local motorsports shop or by buying from other F1 fans where price haggling is common practice.
Is Buying Formula 1 Merchandise Worthwhile?
Formula 1 merchandise I very expensive, but if you buy it from the right sources, it is very high quality. There is very few F1 merch that is poorly made or poor quality, which means that buying F1 merch typically means buying a product of decent quality.
With that being said, buying F1 merch is worthwhile if you have the budget, but it is especially worthwhile if you purchase a particular item to commemorate or memorialize a particular moment in F1 history.
A good example of this is buying an F1 team cap on the day of the final annual F1 World Championship. That is a cap that will always have a special story.
Another reason to buy F1 merch is that it does hold its value quite well and can be a worthwhile purchase if you are inclined to sell the items in the future.
Buying F1 merch is worthwhile if you can afford it or if you attach sentimental value to the items, but the price is only worth paying for these items if the sport is very important to you on a personal level. Otherwise, the cost of F1 merch may not be justifiable.
Conclusion
Formula 1 merchandise is some of the most expensive in the world of motorsport, but it is also some of the most meaningful, as the fans of Formula 1 are incredibly dedicated to their favorite teams.
Buying merchandise legally and finding the best quality items for the money is vital when buying F1 merch. This means that the best place to buy F1 merch is directly from your favorite F1 teams’ official online store.
These online stores hold the largest variety of items and support the team directly while ensuring that you receive quality merchandise for the money that you spend.
Spending more is often better than spending less if you want to own your F1 merch for a long time while maintaining the quality and condition of the items.
If you’re looking for some F1 merchandise, check out the awesome stuff at the official F1 store here.
References
- https://grandprixstore.co.za/
- https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a18735533/f1-swag-its-all-about-the-merchandising-baby-2012-f1-u-s-grand-prix/
- https://f1store4.formula1.com/en/?_s=bm-fi-f1-prtsite-topnav-230720-jm
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