Pay TV channel Sky takes on exclusive rights to F1 in the UK next year, and the worry both among those who like to watch F1 and those who take part in it was that this would lead to a potentially catastrophic drop in audiences and exposure.
There is a free-to-air aspect of Sky's contract, which provides for live coverage of the British Grand Prix and highlights of all the other races on a channel that has "90% technical availability".
Until now, the question had been what that would mean, and where F1 would end up. Would it be buried on an obscure channel with limited reach somewhere on the Freeview programme guide, or stay on a mainstream outlet?
BBC Sport has learned this weekend that Channel 4 - which took over the free-to-air rights to F1 in the UK from the BBC in 2016 - is on the verge of concluding a deal to take on this aspect of the contract.
Channel 4's head of F1, Stephen Lyle, is at Silverstone. He would not comment, but sources close to the discussions have confirmed that an agreement for C4 to continue is very close.
This is positive news for both F1 and British fans, because it guarantees that substantial coverage of the sport will still be available to all the population, and the sport will keep a high profile in one of its biggest and most important and influential markets.
C4 has a strong sense of its own brand and mission, and it will be expected to continue to make distinctive, high-quality programmes on its own terms and with its own production and presenting team.
It is not clear when a deal will be confirmed, as there are still a couple of areas that have yet to be resolved between C4 and Sky. But it is expected to be within the next weeks.
