The season ended not with the spray of champagne, but with the dry rustle of legal papers. The final battle for the soul of Sterling Racing wasn't fought on a racetrack, but in a wood-paneled hearing room at the FIA headquarters on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It was a hallowed, intimidating space, a cathedral of motorsport where the gods of regulation handed down judgment.
I was there not as a spectator, or a witness, or a victim. I was there as part of the judgment itself.
In the three months since Silverstone, my life had been rebuilt on a foundation of solid steel. The appointment to the Sporting and Technical Regulations Committee had been a whirlwind. I was no longer just a coder or a strategist; I was an architect of the sport's future. My days were filled with simulations,
