Fact-Checking Policy

The shape of the problem

Motorsport generates a specific kind of misinformation: not lies, mostly, but decay. A provisional result hardens into memory before the stewards finish. A concept bike’s numbers get reported as production numbers. A single-market price becomes “the” price. A journalist’s guess gets laundered through three aggregators into a confirmed signing. Our fact-checking exists to stop that decay at our door, and this page describes how, concretely.

Race results and classifications

Results are verified against official timing and the series’ own results service, never against a broadcast graphic or another outlet’s report. Between the chequered flag and the official classification sits a window where penalties, tyre pressure checks and technical inspection can reorder everything; while that window is open, our reporting says “provisional”. Stewards’ decisions are read in the original documents, and a penalty story states what rule was breached, what the sanction was, and whether an appeal is possible. Championship tables are recalculated from official points, not accumulated from our own past articles, so that one upstream correction cannot poison a season of standings.

Technical specifications

Specs come from manufacturer press kits, official specification pages and homologation documents, and each figure is checked against the market it belongs to, because the same model can carry different power figures, weights and even names across regions. Claimed figures are labelled “claimed”. Where an independent measurement exists, ours or a credible third party’s, it is presented alongside the claim, clearly distinguished. Prototype and concept figures are never presented as production figures, and when production specs land, articles about the earlier claims get updated per our corrections policy.

Launch dates, recalls and prices

Launch and availability dates are sourced from the manufacturer or distributor and attributed, because slippage is routine and an attributed date ages more honestly than a bare one. Recall information is checked against the issuing authority’s notice and the manufacturer’s statement before publication, and safety-relevant details are re-verified at publication time even if that costs us minutes; being second and correct beats being first and dangerous. Prices are stated with market and moment attached.

The rider market, and other rumours

Silly season is the stress test of any racing outlet’s honesty. Our rules: every claim is attributed to where it came from, with our own assessment of how solid the sourcing looks; single-source claims are labelled single-source; a denial is reported next to the claim it denies; and “confirmed” is a word reserved for an official announcement or our own on-the-record sourcing, not for volume of repetition. When we advance a rumour ourselves, it is because a source in a position to know told us, and the article says exactly as much as we can defend.

Quotes and translations

Quotes are checked against the original recording or transcript where available. Motorsport is multilingual, and translated quotes are the classic corruption vector: a rider’s mild Italian becomes furious English by the third retelling. Where a quote reaches us translated, we check the original language version when we can, attribute the translation, and resist sharpening. A quote that seems too perfect for the narrative usually is.

Photographs and data

Images are verified as showing what they claim: right rider, right session, right year, an evergreen embarrassment in racing coverage where liveries recycle. Telemetry-style claims, top speeds, lean angles, lap records, are traced to who measured them and how, because a speed-trap figure and a GPS figure are different facts wearing the same number.

Before publication, in practice

• Every name, number, date and title in a story is traced to a source the editor can point at, not to memory.
• Anything with a number and a consequence, results, penalties, recalls, prices, gets a second pair of eyes, a rule that survives deadlines. On a fast-moving story we publish less rather than check less.
• Headlines are checked against the story they sit on; a headline that promises more certainty than the article delivers is treated as an error even when every sentence below it is true.

After publication

Verification does not end at publish. Results articles are rechecked when stewards’ documents land, spec articles when production models ship, and reader reports, the best distributed fact-checking department any site could ask for, go to support@alpesmotoracing.com with CORRECTION in the subject. Errors found by either route are handled visibly under the corrections policy, and this policy itself gets revised when a failure exposes a gap in it.