Details emerging about F1 26 engines, but does anyone really know who's where?

[John S]

Some claim Audi behind Merc power output and others say Ferrari has special new alloy intake component. Not forgetting all the naysayers when it comes to Red Bull power trains & Ford efforts.
Only one left out is Honda, now is that because they run a tight ship, or is it no one wants to look foolish with a guess? 

They suggest information gets leaked by engineers swapping teams, surely though such stuff will be out of date due to gardening leave on nearly all team personnel contracts.

What is the truth then??? 
Guess we'll have to wait til testing next year.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/audi-f1-2026-engine-details-data-mercedes-comparison

[Jericoke]

Isn't gardening leave mostly a British thing, and most of the engine companies are not British?  (I know RBPT is based in Britain, and I think the Mercedes engines are too) but that would mean that Audi, Honda and Ferrari (and Renault, for what it's worth) employees would be able to move around easier.  I'm hardly an expert on international employment law though.

But I agree, any information leaked is likely to be outdated at best.  We know that for most of the pre ground effects turbo era, Mercedes loved to sandbag.  Any of these 'leaks' could easily be false information.  If you say your engine is underpowered, maybe your competitors ease up once their own program is 3% better than what they think you have.

[Alianora La Canta]

Most of Europe has the same concept, to a more limited extent than the UK.

France's garden leave is allowed to be the same length as the notice period: if an engineer is allowed to leave with 8 weeks' notice, their garden leave can be a further 8 weeks, for example.

Germany's garden leave can only be activated if the employee is not being sacked or dismissed. In the case of a resignation or other agreed leavetaking, it can be as long or short as everyone involved wishes, so as long as the employee doesn't go to court about it, there's no law setting a maximum gardening leave.

Swiss gardening leave is very similar to British gardening leave law - it can be up to 6 months, unless it's for a very senior employee with a lot of sensitive data (in which case up to 12 months could be imposed). In practise, it's likely to be just under 6 months/a year, because in the Swiss system, the employee continues to rack up holiday leave while on gardening leave.

Italy is the exception to the pattern. Gardening leave is completely illegal, unless individually agreed between employee and employer (typically this would be in return for better benefits in-service, and only kick in after being in the job for a time proportionate to the leave to be served). It cannot in any case exceed the standard notice period for the contract. So if an engineer has an 8-week notice period, then at the end of the 8 weeks of notice, the employee can't be blocked from going anywhere else. (And by default, employees can work for other people during the notice period as long as it doesn't break the contract they signed - and no, companies can't sign exclusivity arrangements unless there's an exceptional circumstance involved e.g. the technical director couldn't serve at two F1 teams simultaneously because of the potential for the FIA accusing both teams of IP regulation breaches).