James Key is not an F1 household name although his contributions to the various teams where he has worked could be under rated. Gary Anderson who designed the first ever Jordan F1 car which sensationally came fifth in the team’s inaugural year recently wrote: “Its not long since James Key was being touted as a potential Adrian Newey replacement.”

The British engineer joined Jordan F1 in 1988 while Anderson was technical director and when the team was sold Key became the youngest ever technical director at the MF1 Racing team. The retained the role through its transition to becoming Spyker and again as it morphed into Force India.

He left to join Sauber in 2010 before two years later being recruited by the Red Bull sister team (Toro Rosso) then in July 2018 he got the call to assist McLaren in their efforts to turn around almost a decade of woeful performance as the team’s technical director.

 

 

James Key lands Sauber technical director role

Key formed a triumvirate with now team boss Andreas Stella (Racing Director) and Piers Thynne (Production Director), all working under Team Principal Andreas Seild.

Following Seidl deciding to leave to head up the Audi F1 project, Key was sacked by new McLaren boss Stella in March last year, but not before he had laid the foundations for McLaren’s revival to come with the B-Spec car launched around eight weeks later at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Seidl now at Sauber seized the opportunity to recruit his old top ranked engineer and Key returned to Sauber in September where he had worked between 2010-2012.

Of course work on this seasons car was well underway by then and Key had landed as early Audi/Sauber integration was taking place.

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Sauber 2024 car “ambitious”

The 2024 season opener provided encouragement for Sauber as Zhou Gaungyu finished just outside the ;points in P11. Yet thirteen races on this has proven to be the high point of the season for the Swiss based team as they languish bottom of the constructors table being the only ones to score no points.

At this seasons launch of the C44 with its striking green livery, James Key described the F1 contender as  “virtually a completely new car” with just a few carry-over areas at the rear from its predecessor.

He also revealed the team had committed to an “ambitious direction well before I joined,” which appeared to be good news at the time. The design had both a pull and push rod suspension design a concept only previously used by Red Bull and McLaren.

While the car has at times looked competitive with Bottas making Q3 and Zhou close to points in a Sprint race, pit stops became a persistent struggle for Kick Sauber in the early stages of the season. Valtteri suffered a 52 second stop in Bahrain due to a cross threaded wheel nut.

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Poor wheel nut design set back

Similar incidents occurred in Saudi Arabia and Australia, with Bottas missing out on points in Melbourne after his stop for fresh tyres took around 30 seconds.

Now on top of the issue, Sauber have fallen behind the rest having been forced to focus on re-engineered a major flaw in the design of the wheels and nuts of their car.

A report now from Formu1a.uno claims that Mattia Binotto is scrutinising the Sauber technical team and suggests that James Key as its head may have some difficult questions to answer and could even be sacked.

Yet Binotto has a lifetime of experience in F1 and will know the current C44 car is not the responsibility of Key who joined the team late last season.

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Audi takeover leaves Sauber in limbo

Part of the problem for Sauber is the Audi takeover is the longest ever in the history of Formula One. Red Bull acquired Jaguar and within months had full control of the team and the kind of funding a manufacturer would usually bring.

Sauber were forced to retain Zhou Gunagyu this season because they were strapped for cash in the winter and Audi were forced to respond by bringing forward the time table to buy the remaining 75% of the team in March.

Binotto will have seen the upward trajectory of McLaren last year in the few weeks since Key left the organisation and should give him time to bring improvements for the 2025 Sauber car which will have been created under his control.

With new team boss James Wheatley on gardening leave until the new year, change for changes sake is surely not the answer.

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Bottas says team need more people

Valtteri Bottas recently admitted the team were short of personnel adding: “Mattia needs to know what are the weaknesses, what are the strengths, what are the priorities for short- and long-term improvements, and that’s going to take a bit of time.”

“Obviously some things are internal, but we know that compared to the big teams, we’re still lacking a bit of human power,” the Finn revealed.

Ferrari are potentially moving to the McLaren style of senior management with Loic Serra on his way from Mercedes. The Frenchman, who was Mercedes’ Head of Vehicle Performance, is set to oversee Track Engineering, Aero Development, Aero Operations and Vehicle Performance.

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Sauber technical team under scrutiny

However, it has been reported that Serra could combine that role with a Technical Director position for a while as Ferrari alters its technical ranks to adopt a three-pronged setup.

The third member of the triumvirate is Head of Aerodynamics Diego Tondi, who turned down a switch to Aston Martin, and Chief Project Engineer Fabio Montecchi.

Binotto needs to beef up the technical team at Kick Sauber  not tear it down and Key’s experience and talent must surely have a place in a similar kind of re-organisation of the technical team.

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Its going to be “very difficult” to help Perez, says RBR boss

Sergio Perez is now in his fourth season with Red Bull Racing and tenure with the world champion F1 team has been mixed at best. The Mexican driver claimed his maiden F1 victory during the Covid stricken season when at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix he took the lead from Esteban Ocon with just over 20 laps remaining.

Since his arrival at Red Bull the following season as the replacement for the outgoing Alex Albon, Checo was won five Grand Prix with his first coming at the 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

This year of course saw the titanic battle between his team mate and Lewis Hamilton for the drivers title which famously was won on the last lap of the last race of the year. While Verstappen was basking in the glory of his first championship, Red Bull lost out to Mercedes in the constructors’ title race that season due to Perez’s inability to match the performances of Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes number two driver… READ MORE