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A sunny Sunday afternoon at Goodwood's Festival of Speed. I'm peering over a thick bush on the edge of the top paddock, waiting for the sight and sound of the current Formula One stars and cars. They've already smoked and screamed their way up the hill, now they're parading back down, the drivers still showboating with piercing wap-wap jabs of throttle.
My phone vibrates. As the F1 cars trail into the paddock, the marshals stoically holding back the tide of fans, I check the text message. It's an autosport.com text alert: "Juan Pablo Montoya will switch to NASCAR next season after signing with Chip Ganassi Racing." Wow.
As I look up, Gary Paffett is steering his striking chrome McLaren MP4-21 off Goodwood's stately drive and into the paddock. What a coincidence, I think. This news could be just what the young test driver has been waiting for.
At Goodwood, it was far from clear what the immediate ramifications of Montoya's bolt from the blue would be. In the Autosport office on Monday we speculated that JPM's F1 career could already be over, that McLaren would move fast to put their failed relationship with the Colombian behind them.
