Following this mornings extraordinarily late announcement that only half of the 2015 season's Formula 1 races would be shown live on Australian free-to-air TV - previous information had been that the deal would not come into effect until 2016 - many fans are now left in the position of being forced into making hasty arrangements to enable their continued enjoyment of the pinnacle of world motorsport.

Couple this with Foxtel's near monopoly on Australian broadcast rights for the Moto GP and Australian V8 Supercar series, and you are left with a very large number of Australian fans who are unable to afford to indulge their passion for motorsport.

Currently, to enable viewing of Fox Sports, viewers are required to spend a minimum of $50 a month with the Fox Sports package only being available as and add-on to other packages.

(For someone who would, for example, only want to watch Formula 1, this will amount to the best part of $30 per-race for a Standard Definition broadcast.)

Needless to say, this puts it out of reach of many potential viewers.

This petition aims to make Foxtel realise the large market they are missing out on, and to hopefully convince them to offer a 'Sports Only' package for around the same price ($20-$25) per month as one of their basic packages.