BlackEco

FYI, they did not spend over the cap but rather did not fill the paperwork correctly or on time:

"The CCA [Cost Cap Administration] confirms that although Alpine Racing SAS and HRC [Honda Racing Corporation] have both been found to be in procedural breach, neither have exceeded the cost cap level," the FIA said in a statement.

The procedural breaches were not detailed but could refer to late submissions of documents or errors in the documentation provided.

(Emphasis mine)

Apparently in France naming a Prime Minister of the party that won the last elections is a compromise in itself for the President, so I would start with that 😒

Anyone else surprised at the short gardening leave?

Well, technically he's already on gardening leave as he's been put to work on the hyper car project for a few months now and has not been involved with the F1 side of Red Bull since.

The article (or De Meo) fails to mention that the decision is not only left to Renault's board, as Viry-Chatillon's labor unions have a say in this matter: in France labor unions have a voice when a company has important plans such as this one (and especially when they can lead to job losses).

Bruno Famin at least mentioned that at the end of July

“The project, which has been presented to the staff representative and to different governance bodies, is talking about 2026 onwards on the power unit,” he said.

“Of course, we are talking to different manufacturers and, for the time being, nothing is done because it’s a project… we have to follow in France, with unions, we have a social process which is very strict to follow.

“We cannot take any decision until we reach the end of that process. But, for the time being, we are talking to some PU manufacturers but we cannot sign anything until this process is over.”

The argument about remote working is total nonsense to me, job market pressure and money lost paying gardening leaves are better arguments against prolonged gardening leaves IMHO.

Thank you for the tip, but is there any way to delete the activity data from Meta after de-linking?

RSS/ATOM has to be the best thing to come out of XML

It does for a few versions now, and even before there was at least one extension adding this feature.

I just watched the podium ceremony again after reading F1.com's latest article on the Piastri-Norris matter and the McLaren boys have sour faces: Oscar seems pissed by the fact that he lost to Leclerc simply because his car allowed him to do a one-stopper, and Lando even more so because of the Lap 1 debacle.

To be fair the track has been resurfaced and has low grip, with multiple drivers close to losing grip during FP1. Kimi Andrea unfortunately sent it too fast on his push.

The track definitely has low grip because of the resurfacing, it for sure did not help Antonelli and Maylander.

Oh and apparently Mercedes were doing a split-setup test with Russell's car having the new floor. Oof