Really? It's called "no-compete"clause and it's as common as dirt. Or do you think that "gardening leaves" occur every year in F1 because, deep within, all top tech guys are lawn and shrubbery afficionados?
On the other hand, which big names in F1 took such sudden leaves and came back later? Alain Prost - from Ferrari. Schumacher - from Ferrari. ...Raikkonnen - now, the question is, will he come back or not? Because, you know, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." If he comes back too, we might have to revisit this topic sometime in the future.
Yep, really. At least for the scenarios suggested, which was MS getting axed by the team and prevented to go to another team at the same time.
Totally different from what you're talking of. A no compete clause is usually null and void when the contract is broken for no good reason by one party, which would have been the case here. Personally I'm not convinced it was like that, but that's another matter.
