Thanks to a series of health issues, I ended up flying home early from the last grand prix in Monaco. Leaving a race weekend early was not something I ever thought I'd do, but sometimes life gets in the way of all the best-laid plans.
Having spent the past six years - and the entire SkySportsF1 tenure - watching each grand prix at the track, being forced to enjoy the Monaco Grand Prix from the comfort of my sofa was going to be an interesting opportunity to remind myself of just what it's like to watch F1 as a fan.
At least, it would have been had I been able to find a legal way to watch the race.
The cost of the SkySportsF1 package is prohibitively high for someone who's never at home to watch the races, so I am not a subscriber. But no matter - a showpiece event like the Monaco Grand Prix (that oh-so-cliched jewel in Formula One's crown) would certainly be available on free-to-air (FTA) television. As the most famous race on the calendar, how better to attract more casual fans to the sport than by giving them live access to what is supposed to be the grand prix to rule them all?
A few minutes before the race start I collected my laptop and notebook and headed upstairs. BBC1, no race. BBC2, no race. BBC3? Nope, still not broadcasting before early evening. And what about the red button? Some form of entirely non-motorised competitive nonsense.
For the first time since I first started watching Formula One, I was unable to watch a race as it happened, and instead had to rely on the BBC's (excellent, but understandably limited) delayed highlights package. Long before the lights went out on my Monaco Grand Prix, I already knew of Lewis Hamilton's defeat snatched from the jaws of victory - avoiding spoilers is damn-near impossible for anyone with internet access.
What little suspense the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix had to offer was neutered before the "start" of the event for those millions of British fans relying on the legal FTA broadcast of (some of) the race.
And yes, I could have found an illegal stream and watched the Sky broadcast. Millions of people do during every grand prix. But F1's approach to broadcasting its most high profile rounds should not force the curious into seeking out illegal methods of access, however easy those methods might happen to be.
From a personal perspective, I was horrified. Having written extensively about the downsides to the current split FTA and subscription broadcasting model in a growing number of territories, it's not as though I was ignorant of the fact that the glory days of my FTA fandom fed by ITV and the BBC were long since gone. But to discover that the race this sport likes to sell as its showpiece event was off the airwaves in a year when F1's stakeholders are finally facing up to the realities of the sport's ever-dwindling audiences? It screams of the short-sightedness that is the foundation of many of F1's current problems.
If F1 must continue in its pursuit of the subscription broadcast model while seeking to grow its audience, future broadcasting contracts should ensure FTA access of those races most likely to bring in new fans: Monza, Spa, Suzuka, and Interlagos, where the circuit designs almost guarantee good racing. In addition, as the flagship round the sport likes to canonise, the saintly Monaco should also be made freely available.
By teasing fans with the real and supposed highlights of the sport for free, we should be able to lure more new fans into subscription access. Thrilling, addictive, and potentially dangerous, Formula One is a drug. Why don't we start pushing it like one?