The news that runs a little wide

About sortiedepiste.be

sortiedepiste.be is a news outlet covering Formula 1 and professional Belgian motorsport (rallying, endurance, Formula E) with a humorous treatment, published from Brussels by Second Shift in French, Dutch and English.

What is true. Every dispatch starts from a real, sourced and verifiable fact. The main source is linked at the end of the article. Quotes attributed to real drivers, engineers, team principals or stewards are reproduced as they were said. A driver-market rumour is presented as a rumour, with the outlet reporting it.

What is invented. The reactions of Josiane, Fabienne, Gérard and Nathan. They are fictional columnists, presented as such on The Newsroom page. None of them supports a particular team: the newsroom teases the pit wall, the radio and the rulebook, not the drivers. Post 14, Fabienne Racing and Florian do not exist; real track marshals are never named.

What we don’t do. No dispatch about an accident with injuries, past or present. “Off track” here means the gravel trap and a strategy that goes wide, never anything else. No dispatch either about amateur or provincial motorsport: karting, regional rallying, hill climbs and club championships are the backdrop of our characters, never a subject.

How it is made. Dispatches are written, checked, illustrated and published by a chain of artificial-intelligence programs, every half hour from 6 am to 11 pm, with no human review before publication. A human editor sets the rules (the editorial line, the thresholds, the forbidden subjects), adjusts them, and can pull a dispatch at any time. The full circuit is told on The Newsroom page.

Images. The visuals are illustrations generated by an image model from a scene written by the site, in a flat drawing style. Drivers, engineers and marshals are generic characters in them, never portraits; no photos, no synthetic images imitating a real person, no real liveries or helmets, never a damaged car.

Newsletter. The address left in the subscription form is used to send the newsletter, and for nothing else. It is kept by the site (with the date of consent) and passed to Brevo, which sends the e-mails. Every mailing contains an unsubscribe link; to be removed from the list, write to the publisher.