While Lewis Hamilton performed his doughnuts in front of the grandstand and then removed his fireproof vest in order to display his tattoos on the podium in Abu Dhabi on Sunday night, Channel 4’s lineup of commentators, presenters and analysts were packing their bags, having broadcast the race to an average audience of 2.3 million, as live grand prix coverage in Britain prepared to disappear behind a paywall.

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For viewers in the country where 70% of the cars on the grid are built, the only exception next year will be the British Grand Prix, the crumb of comfort for Channel 4 to go along with a one-year deal for a highlights programme. Given that the owners of Silverstone recently triggered the exit clause from their contract with Formula One, the 2019 race could even be the last round of the world championship to be held in Britain. And that would mean no live free-to-air grand prix racing on British television at all.

The deal to grant Sky exclusive rights, for a fee of around £1.2bn over five years, was made by Bernie Ecclestone. In many ways Formula One is better off without a ringmaster who clung to power as tenaciously as Gordon Taylor is doing. Had Ecclestone still been in charge, however, he might now have been looking for a way to preserve the bigger audience that sponsors and advertisers always want. But that gift for manoeuvrability has gone with him.

So Formula One finds itself in the position of Test cricket, the Ryder Cup, the Premier League, World Cup skiing and England’s home rugby matches – available in Britain only to those with a subscription. Now it waits to find out whether it will prosper, as the Premier League has undoubtedly done, or suffer in the manner of Test cricket, which retains a following but has lost a certain position in the national life.

For those with access to Sky, the satellite channel will no doubt continue to bring unprecedented resources to bear on the sport. There are aspects that stretch the patience, like the rushed and inane encounters of the grid walk and the plethora of pensioned-off drivers saying nothing very much. Sometimes it makes one yearn for the distinctive BBC commentary of Raymond Baxter or Murray Walker, who were enthusiasts before they became broadcasters, the bullshit-free observations of James Hunt, or even the ruminations of John Bolster, with his deerstalker hat and “roving microphone”, who could peer at the innards of a Connaught or a Maserati and know exactly what he was looking at, since he had built and raced his own cars in the 1930s.

But then you see the level of detailed technical analysis provided by Anthony Davidson, whose career as a participant in the sport – like that of Simon Hughes in cricket – stopped just short of the very highest level of achievement. Or the post-race debrief provided by Ted Kravitz, who wanders through the paddock as the teams pack up, consulting his notebook to provide a concise, colourful and perceptive summary of each team’s performance that day, from the front of the grid to the back. I don’t suppose Kravitz has ever built a racing car with his bare hands, but in every other way he is the John Bolster of the 21st century.

Nevertheless, Liberty Media, which bought Formula One’s commercial rights from a private equity company and promptly showed Ecclestone the door, is inheriting the probability of a further drop in audience ratings, following a sharp downward trend that began when Sky entered the picture and the free-to-air window started to close. For the owners, as for Ecclestone, the upside is the guaranteed income.

Liberty Media’s strategy varies from country to country – in Germany, for instance, pay-TV has been abandoned in favour of a lucrative arrangement with a terrestrial network – but its long-term plan appears to be the provision of coverage via its own streaming service. Although this is not yet possible in those territories, such as Britain, where there is an existing deal with a broadcaster, it plans to start it up next season in the Netherlands, where a huge following makes Max Verstappen a key future box-office attraction. It remains to be seen whether the chance to switch between live onboard cameras and team radio from all 20 cars will prove attractive enough to compensate for the final erosion of any kind of editorial independence.

Going for immediate revenue above all other considerations risks damaging the already shaky ecology of Formula One. The announcement of a new race in Hanoi fits in with the old regime’s policy of taking vast amounts of cash from places that want F1’s prestige without having a base of support, but the policy also threatens to stretch, in both financial and human terms, the ability of the teams to cope with an already overcrowded calendar.

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Meanwhile, F1 will have to keep an eye on Formula E, the all-electric single-seater series now about to start a fifth season with the involvement of major manufacturers who can see the future heading their way. It has a new car with increased battery power and better looks, a schedule of races in photogenic cities from Marrakesh to Berlin, and now a deal with the BBC for free-to-air live transmission via the red button, plus one live race on BBC2.

Given recent events, the choice of Ad Diriyah in Saudi Arabia might not be ideal for the opening round on 15 December. But at a time when so much sport is competing for attention, there’s something to be said for free access to a series that genuinely wants to increase its audience rather than just pocket vast amounts of dosh.