What’s the fuzz about Antonielli anyways? He’s currently 6th in the F2 and has yet finish on the podium. That’s respectable, but doesn’t look like the next Verstappen. From the current grid, Leclerc, Russel, Hamilton, Norris, Piastri, Hülkenberg and possibly some others all had far more impressive rookie seasons in F2/GP2

Surely it’s a strange decision to negotiate no gardening leave with RB if he was just going to retire anyway?

Maybe it was a just in case measure. So that he can say yes if the right opportunity arrives. Either way he is in a weird spot when it comes to designing a 2026 car. By the time he leaves Red Bull in 2025, the teams will have already laid down the fundamental design of their 2026 car, so he wouldn’t be able to design it from the ground up. And in the era of the cost cap, the cars of the following years will likely be evolutions of the 2026 car rather than Newey’s own design. We saw how long it took Mercedes to get away from their zero sidepod design and it’s probably still hurting them.

Many governments on the planet have less money than some big tech or oil companies. Obviously not those of large industrious nations, but most nations aren’t large and industrious.

There is nothing objectively wrong with your statement. However, we somehow always default to solving that issue by having some dragon hoard enough gold, and there is something objectively wrong with that.