The Bahrain International Circuit offered another great race on Sunday, it's just a shame fans were not able to watch some of the most important parts, writes Kate Walker
It is an open secret in Formula One that to displease Bernie Ecclestone means risking a lack of coverage of your team's cars (and their sponsors) on the world television feed.
Force India learned the lesson back in 2012, when the team's decision to pull out of the second free practice session so that team members could travel back to their hotel when the sun was still high in the sky resulted in a race weekend which - based on a review of the broadcast footage - took place without a single VJM05 in attendance.
Based on coverage of the 2015 Bahrain Grand Prix, someone at Mercedes must have done something very naughty indeed.
For the first half of the race, when the Mercedes and Ferrari pairs were jostling for position at the front of the pack, the bulk of the action on screen focussed on the tense yet hardly crucial battle for ninth. Those present in the press room could watch the gaps between the front-runners extend and close up on the live timing screens, but those watching at home would be forgiven for forgetting that the Silver Arrows and Prancing Horses had turned up to work on Sunday evening.
When the gaps were steady in the podium positions the oddly unbalanced TV coverage was noteworthy, but hardly problematic. But by the time it became clear that Sebastian Vettel was making uncharacteristic errors off-screen, running wide in the middle sector while Kimi Raikkonen's lap times confirmed that the Finn would be a force to be reckoned with come the finish, the lack of TV time given to those teams who are the biggest draw to fans was little short of lunacy.
F1's falling viewing figures are largely attributable to the move to subscription-only access, but some blame should also be laid at the feet of those who are choosing to ignore the moments of drama generated by those men fighting for a chance at the championship.
Nico Rosberg's second pit stop - a strategically crucial moment (were it not for the German's later brake problems) - was not shown on screen. It was only in the closing laps that appropriate screen time was given to Raikkonen closing in on the stricken W05 ahead, the gap between the pair decreasing from 19.1 seconds on lap 41 to less than four seconds by lap 51.
Instead, and in something of a coup for the sponsors of traditionally ignored teams like Sauber, an inordinate amount of the Bahrain Grand Prix world feed featured on-board footage from Felipe Nasr's car. Sponsor Silanna received a season's worth of exposure in the one hour, thirty-five minutes, and 5.809 seconds it took Lewis Hamilton to complete at 57 laps of the race.
Inside the press room, the director's decision to avoid broadcasting footage of the Mercedes pair unless it was unavoidable to do so for the narrative of the race was so apparent that we took to shouting out every time a Silver Arrow appeared on screen - usually a pinprick in the background of a shot featuring a Ferrari. The Scuderia's sponsors would have had much better value for money had Raikkonen and Vettel not spent the evening running so close to the championship leaders.
For the second year running, the Bahrain Grand Prix was an exciting race with top-notch driving and a nail-biting finish. As a two-hour TV feed of competition and drama at the highest level, it was exactly the sort of event that broadcasters drool of, and a night that should have attracted legions of new fans to the sport. Instead, thanks to a decision to film the race while ignoring the best of the footage, Formula One scored yet another own goal when it was on course to deliver a winner.