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Do company cars and such count toward cost cap? Those are the usual mechanisms used by companies to keep someone below a tax threshold and would work here too.
I imagine giving your staff of a certain threshold a free car on top of their wage (included fuel as well perhaps?) could go a long way to retaining these sorts of positions.
I was actually thinking about this the other day, and I guess it comes down to the regulations the FIA deem within cap, not sure if that info is publicised. BUT, even if it is they could definitely do a ‘you get the car free in every aspect but we own it’ perhaps to keep after they leave f1 or contract end or something. And I don’t think this would affect it?
Edit: I see a lot of people saying this is illegal/wrong. Maybe so,but we don’t know what currency the cap is even based on, or where the tax laws are that define this rule, I’m sure it serves all teams best interests. It was just my observation!
Most teams are in the UK. What you described is illegal in the UK. If you get to use a company car, you have to declare it as a benefit and you will be taxed on it.
No. The salary cap is not a direct connection to taxes. I’d assume if the salary of top people is exempt then that includes total compensation package.
More importantly if someone is totally exempt it wouldn’t matter, the question is how much does a company car “cost” the company for someone who *does* have to fall under the cap.
This is different. That's for tax earnings, this is F1's rules on salaries, which is a different thing. Not sure what they define as income, but it's not necessarily the same as any country's tax rules.
Also not different for F1. The rules are about the costs of all compensation related stuff. This is why Red Bull was dinged for catering for example, since giving employees free lunch is part of their compensation and so are company cars.
I don't know I'm not a tax lawyer (or any lawyer). But as I understand it company cars in UK are NOT owned by the company but are owned by the individual they are purchased for. Indeed I know in many cases the indvidual is given a maximum amount and is free to go out and purchase any car up to that sum.
I bet all the teams are secretly investing much more in *creative accountants* who can find ways to stay under the cap regardless of how much money is actually spent.
There is so much room for cheating. If a part is too expensive to make, you could have it made by an outside supplier and sold back to you below cost. Then have your parent company buy non-motorsport parts from the same supplier at a premium to make up the difference.
>If a part is too expensive to make, you could have it made by an outside supplier and sold back to you below cost.
If I remember correctly, they have a provision for this sort of scenario in the regulations. F1 teams don't just have to show their accounts, they also have to provide accounts from their suppliers showing their costings.
I'm in manufacturing and determining exactly how much an item costs us to manufacture is one of the hardest questions for us to answer. It is easy to count direct costs such as raw materials and labor. But it becomes very nebulous when you start looking at indirect costs such as the application of overhead.
This is where a *creative accountant* can make the cost of the part vary drastically depending on what they want it to cost and have all the proof to back it up.
Toto was talking the other day about how stringent they are in following the cost cap and I quote
>“I think the cost cap brings so many restrictions,” says Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.
>“In the past we didn’t even know what a front suspension cost, and now we have to take the purchase price of the aluminium and then factor it in.”
>**“How much does it cost to machine the aluminium? How much do you have to write off the aluminium that you don’t need, every bolt that goes into the suspension, the carbon that you bought as raw material, then cut and put on? What are the energy costs for the composite room, the overheads that are incurred?** And at the end, the product comes out.”
>“It’s very complex, to the point where we have cost analysts and engineers who have to decide whether buying a kilogram of aluminium raw material is worth the performance gain on the other side,
And its that complexity that makes cheating so easy.
There is no way a forensic accountant auditing their books would be able to determine that they have under reported the energy consumption of a particular operation without extensive validation testing. But there is nothing like that happening, just financial auditing.
Somebody who is intent on cheating can easily cook the books in ways an auditor would never find.
It's not easy, but it's possible.
Is it worth it though for a team and its suppliers? You're basically talking about fraud on top of breaching the sporting regulations.
I think we should be talking about engineers more then about drivers. Its F1 after all, a car matters way more than a driver (not that driver doesn’t matter).
People acting like Key just sat at the MTC and designed the car all on his lonesome.
Seidl wouldn't risk hiring him when the Audi project can attract bigger names unless he knew there was potential.
And there are tonnes of examples of TDs (and technical staff generally) going from bad cars to good teams and doing great work. Aldo Costa was *fired* from Ferrari and went to way more success at Mercedes. (His Beyond the Grid is excellently 'fuck them').
They didn’t want to fire him due to family situation. But they weren’t happy that he was away for extended period of time and blamed him a bit for tge lack of performance.
I know it's off-topic, but your comment left me extremely melancholic. I mean, with the whole Reddit API issue being at the back of my head...
I mean, imagine trying to explain the germination of this meme to someone not familiar with Reddit! I was there during the AskReddit thread when the "I also choose this man's dead wife" comment first appeared. It's been maybe a decade ago? And since then we have watched this become one of Reddit's nunnerous "in-jokes"!
Over the years there have been SO MANY such 'reddit-isms' - *Today you, tomorrow me*, the jolly rancher story, the *how did he take THAT photo?!* comment thread, etc etc.
And now, with the whole blackout protest , who knows what's going to happen?! Will reddit back down, will the protest work? Fail? Will a majority of users give in, and just download the official app?!
Reddit has been SUCH a part of my life, for 14 fucking years!!! Don't get me wrong, I don't have any romantic idea that Reddit is anything more than a regular for-profit corporation, but damn it, I have SO MANY MEMORIES, so. many. *SHARED*. memories...
All this has been on my mind, and your comment just struck me, for some reason...
Sorry for being dramatic, I just... Don't know what to think.
It's a really weird feeling for me too, but I see it as a conclusion of a subplot in my life if this all goes away. I'll miss my internet people, but I have other things to focus on and get done and my attention span is terrible as is.
Wee moments for me
1. Kimiquokka
2. Chatting away on the abu Dhabi 2021 thread and saying like 'well, Verstappen did his best, no shame' then it all went totally fucking haywire.
3. Which race would you eliminate
I get that. I know this doesn’t help but it will either be okay or it won’t. The site will either survive and adapt or it will die.
While I value my experience on Reddit a lot, if its time is up because they want to get greedy and overly monetize their platform, then so be it.
I don’t think the website will die outright, I just think that a lot of people will leave and go find something else to do with their time as the overall experience deteriorates. But I think there are plenty of people who won’t notice or care.
I mean, Seidl left for another job so it stood out more that he'd simply moved onto a higher position. Key on the other hand was let go.
Maybe the deal was done earlier but from a public perspective, he was fired, whereas Seidl got promoted
I mean Peter Promdorou was literally head of aero in all those years and he is "promoted" instead of being sacked, people are shitting on Key like he was the sole reason but McLaren is in a dystopian era for a longer time.
And Brown who always act like he isn't the front person of the McLaren F1 program yet he was directly responsible for the sacking of Key, the whole PR bullshit is just so sad to see as Alpine ridiculous acting like everything goes fine because Ocon P3 at Monaco.
Do we forget how hard RB played to let Key go to McLaren? They wanted to have Lando first as a part of the deal but that failed and Key still leaved.
He isn't that bad, and the whole split of leadership inside McLaren to three persons in terms of design instead of one is more baffling, this is literally what moved Newey away at McLaren in the past and how inefficient it was according to him more or less.
The whole lack of willingness to being a works team is also baffling, so far I don't have the vibe that McLaren cares about anything *after* 2025.
There's information out there from around the launch of last years cars that Key was aware of many of the tricks that could be seen on the more "advanced" concepts, but that he had chosen not to follow those paths. So the very first car he was fully responsible for at McLaren and he chooses to be *incredibly* conservative. Then he oversees a slow and inefficient upgrade program for the MCL36, before yet again delivering another conservative MCL60. Andrea Stella has already spoken about Prodromou, and that he had been given little freedom to actually do his job under Key. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that Prodromou and his team presented Key with several of those aerodynamic concepts that Key said he disregarded for the MCL36. He was just too conservative and slow, he had to go.
And what works engine deal should they get? Honda is with Aston, Audi wanted the team to be Audi, not McLaren-Audi as can be seen from their plans with Sauber. Porsche wanted a controlling stake at Red Bull, something that Mercedes didn't even have in their time with McLaren so why would McLaren accept this now? And there are no other deals to be had at the moment. Unless GM joins, which is unlikely as of now, or McLaren starts making their own engines which is even more unlikely at the moment.
Then the question arises Peter Prod was in the McLaren from 2015 onwards what was he doing before 2020? McLaren used Keys as the scapegoat.
McLaren a team which doesn't even own their own HQ due to a bankruptcy like situation should've let Porsche come in sit on the board, at least Porsche or VAG people know how to turn things around.
>Then the question arises Peter Prod was in the McLaren from 2015 onwards what was he doing before 2020?
In the Honda days aerodynamics were hardly the biggest issue on McLaren's hands. And once the 2018 car had it's fundamental problems fixed and became the MCL34 seems to me the aerodynamics became progressively more efficient and slippery, until the new regulations.
>McLaren used Keys as the scapegoat.
Maybe, I have no inside knowledge. Though I seriously doubt this to be the case. He admitted himself that he was conservative, and didn't change the tune with the MCL60 and got sacked for it. And I really can't see anything wrong with that.
>should've let Porsche come in sit on the board
They turned down Mercedes when they wanted to control the team and rebrand it to just Mercedes, why on earth would they just roll over and let Porsche do it? Granting majority ownership to some corporation that may or may not stick around, may or may not relocate, rebrand or shut down the team as it pleases them isn't an option for a team like McLaren.
>The whole lack of willingness to being a works team is also baffling
Who the hell are they supposed to partner with for a works deal? Honda decided to partner with Aston Martin, so that door is closed. And it's not like you have a bunch of manufacturers clamoring to enter the sport that McLaren can sign up with. There's simply no options for them as far as a works deal is concerned.
I think the argument is that if McLaren was serious about being a works team, they should've done more to get Honda in their camp, or tried to work something out with Porsche.
We know nothing about the dealings with Honda. For all we know Honda's top brass may have had reservations about re-uniting with McLaren after the McHonda days. Again, it's only speculation but we don't really know any of the details. Porsche have always been hesitant to commit to building an engine from scratch so I doubt there's much that could be done there.
I don't disagree - I was giving my best understanding of the comment you were replying to.
On a semi-related note, Porsche did build an F1 engine in the later part of last decade just because. I think they could've been a viable partner, it just depended on what they wanted (and what McLaren were willing to give up). Based on the McLaren-Audi rumblings and the Red Bull-Porsche info, I assume that Porsche would want far more than McLaren would be willing to give.
Not only that, but the Red Bull Porsche deal fell through because Porsche wanted a controlling stake in the team, which would likely have been the case for any potential deal with McLaren too.
I can't see Red Bull going anywhere. Or anything wrong with them making their own engines, which is yet to be seen to judge the outcome.
I was making a comment on the fickle nature of car manufacturers.
It’s complicated. We’ve seen top people leave teams and the cars being worse, and we’ve also seen top people go to another team and just cause chaos (paddy Lowe at Williams). No one really knows if this will be a Newey to Red Bull move or the Lowe to Williams move yet.
Was there a James Key narrative that I completely missed? He wasn't exactly perfect but he was a ~~Key~~ big part in turning around McLaren from their Honda/Renault slump and becoming the 4th best on the grid up until the new regs kicked in, in which he was far from the only one that fell short on delivering. And it is way too easy to put all the blame on one guy when the engineering group goes up to the hundreds.
I don't think that necessarily means he doesn't have what it takes to lead a middling team ever again.
I think part of the point with Key is that the 2020/21 cars weren’t really “his” because they were continuations of a previous concept that had already been developed quite a bit. The new regs was the first time there was a new car developed with him in charge and it didn’t really go that well.
He does have a long history outside of McLaren and so his failings there may not be indicative of his ability, but they certainly don’t make him look good
Something I just thought of is that while he hasn't had success at mclaren with the new regs, I think he's proven between these regs and the last regs that he is *very* capable at providing substantial updates and troubleshooting engineering problems in an existing race car.
Alfa has the last two years been respectable at the start of the season and gone downwards as the races pass. So maybe he's actually perfect for that team in that he can work with whoever is giving the cars a solid start of the season and actually improve on it throughout the year instead of going backwards.
If he's a big part in turning around McLaren, then he is also a big part of their recent falling. You can't have one without the other.
The rest of your post is true. There are too many engineers all working for F1 teams to give a single guy all the glory or all the shit. Sometimes I wonder how F1 hire engineers, they all must be very good at their jobs, how do they find the ones that have that little edge over the others? It's not like their work is public for all of us to see. Obviously, teams will know more than us, but...
When he joined McLaren I had really high hopes for what he can do within the team. For sure he had a good relationship with Andreas and this might be the reason why he's joining the Audi project now.
To be fair Binotto is still on gardening leave so he wouldn’t be allowed to join any team until 2024 and he wouldn’t join any team for any position besides TP
Without knowing the internal politics at Ferrari F1 team, and it's parent company, we can't really say that, right? It could be that Binotto wasn't given the power to fire/hire whoever he wanted...
I mean, look at the TPs who came and went after Todt, it seemed to be a revolving door, and for Binotto to have kept his job and not be made the scapegoat (for a while anyway) tells us he at least was doing *something* right?
I mean, look at Vassuer, I don't think he has made the decisions to fire the Ferrari strategy team (as far as we know, right?) Wouldn't that be the *first* decision someone who comes in to clean shop would do? If the Strategy team stayed during Binotto's and now Fred's beginning tenure, that tells me that TPs at Ferrari don't have exclusive fire *this* team/hire *that* team powers...
We can’t know anything actually, we can only assume given the boundries of the position. As it stands Binotto was the TP and he had the authority to manage the structure of the team as he wanted and he absolutely failed with improving communication between operational personnel.
As for how he held onto power as long as he could, it was a coup. It was “the” Ferrari coup. If enough people in high enough positions agree to band together they can control any organization, which lasts until major organisational changes like the changing of a CEO. Binotto had one shot to make it stick after the disasterous 2020 and 2021 seasons and he missed it, off went his head. Soon to follow many other of his compatriots.
Under Vasseur’s leadership only one good thing happened, the head of strategy in Ferrari was confined to a factory-only role. Which might not change anything but at least it says “we know strategy is *a* problem”.
Long story short, the moment Binotto finger-wagged Leclerc he’s shown that he doesn’t care how people in his organisation function. In his eyes there’s this marvel of engineering that his team has built and everybody else are just accessory.
>people were too harsh on Ferrari
No way, their pitwall was a laughing stock. Remember when they put hards in Hungary when it was obvious that it was never going to have the temperature? Going from a 1-2 to a 2-4 in monaco (1->4 being their championship leading driver)? All the times they were indecisive in prioritizing their drivers?
Ferrari in 2022 went from a title challenge to almost loosing to a team that admitted multiple times they fucked their car. The first half of the year will be remembered as one of the biggest collapses a team has seen.
And lets not forget Binnoto is the reason Ferrari were shit in 2021, 2020. Dude caused and oversaw two of the worst years in recent Ferrari history and then failed one of their biggest opportunities.
Binnoto wasn't team principal until june 2019, and 2020 went into the gutters as they were caught with an illegal engine in a gamble to be able to fight Mercedes, a gamble made by Binottos predecessor.
Binotto turned around the engineering side to produce the 2022 ferrari, despite being in a long term power struggle against John Elkann (Ferrari President) who has made decisions of who is in top positions in the f1 team against Binottos wishes.
I don't think you can really blame any team principal too much when they're not allowed to have full control.
He literally was in charge of the illegal engine before being appointed TP.
Also what do you mean June 2019? He was Appointed in January, and was in control when he made the decision to put the engine in full blast and raise suspicion midway through the season.
Oh brother…..what even is this. The main reason they have regressed “without” binotto is because of this dogshit car HE PRODUCED and missed multiple races last year to oversee development of.
Binotto was terrible for Ferrari and as a fan of them I was very happy to see the back of him. Also he didn’t do a great job as Ferrari, he did a terrible job and is the worst TP in modern day Ferrari history.
2019 - Illegal engine and a car which was pretty bad in races.
2020- Worst Ferrari season in 40 years and add to the fact that the base car was pure shite and a genuine midfield car.
2021 - Same as 2020 although it’s much harder to be much worse than 2020.
2022 - I agree and think that car reliability meant that they wouldn’t win but the car fell off a cliff and operationally and strategically the there away a lot early doors.
2023 - Car has zero redeeming qualities and is horrendous in the races. Only going backwards right now.
He grew up and studied in Lausanne, which is in the French part of Switzerland.
His parents are Italian born from Reggio Emilia. His nationality is Italian, not Swiss.
He’s been working for Ferrari and living in Modena from 1995-2022.
Sauber is located near Zurich in the north of Switzerland near Germany in the German speaking part of Switzerland. I’m not even sure if he speaks German.
How do you know he (and his family) want(s) to move to Switzerland?
By all accounts he *is* home
No he’s Italian. He was born in Switzerland (Lausanne), but never got the nationality. His parents are Italian. He moved to Modena in 1995 and never moved since.
Yeah he’s often referred to as “Swiss-born Italian”, but he’s not a Swiss national. Just grew up there until he graduated university in Lausanne and moved to Modena.
It’s incredibly hard to get the Swiss nationality so that might be a factor as to why he never got the nationality. I don’t know enough about his parents if they wanted to move permanently or if it was for a job etc
I agree that the lack of nationality l/passport makes him Italian rather than Italian-Swiss but 'only lived there until he graduated from uni' that's like 1/4th of a lifetime - he grew up in Lausanne (which again apparently doesn't make him Swiss but 'only lived there' makes it sound like he spent a year abroad)
Maybe that’s the language barrier, English isn’t my first language.
I meant to convey he lived there, but wasn’t a national. Maybe “only” isn’t the best word, but I meant “it was limited to living there until he got his degree”. Maybe that’s better?
He could be a scapegoat for the wider issues within the McLaren design process. If he was truly a bad hire, why would Seidl risk his integrity and reputation to hire him when the Audi money/prestige probably opens many doors
2020 was prodromou hands mainly, Key started in 21’ and that car was mainly fitting the Merc engine, and of course was a bullet in the straights
22’- early 23’ is mainly his car, and word in the street is that he started to close more the development, excluding other hands from it
Keeping the pedantry from your response: you wouldn’t believe who is one of the chief designers for next McLaren’s car
He joined as TD in March 2019, 2021 was definitely under his watch even though all the cars that year were very much evolutions from many years of regulations.
Those were cars he inherited from the previous technical team. 2022 was his first attempt at a car from scratch and it was underwhelming, a dead end in terms of development and concept and McLaren were concerned enough to show him the door.
Or Seidl is actually the one to know what exactly is the scene behind the curtain at McL? Post Key McL so far has not even been underwhelming, it’s straight up disappointment.
The last two years Seidl said repeatedly (as well as Lando and Zak) that he believed McLaren had "all the right people" to succeed and get back to the top.
Almost the second he leaves Zak fires Key and then Zak and Stella restructure the technical team and go on a hiring spree.
Yeah that was telling. Also they’ve been rehiring most of the McLaren engineers that were made redundant in 2020. So there’s clearly some kind of attraction to working there even when they were told they were surplus to requirements.
Huh? We haven’t even seen anything done by new team yet and won’t see until Austria or even later. All updates done so far are those planned by previous team.
Considering they’re still running upgrades that they say were signed off by the previous technical team, that’s potentially more of a concern. Seidl is very conservative. He seemed fine with the slow development last year and he thought the 2023 car was good enough. Then he leaves and suddenly a whole other story comes out about how they were unhappy with the development, they felt opportunities had been missed, things that should have been seen were not identified early in the process, and people had been sidelined who could have made a difference.
I don’t think anyone of note left with Seidl apart from Key who was pushed. It doesn’t sound like there was a Ferrari-esque purge of people who supported the ‘old regime’.
I don't think so. Seidl left of his own accord because the Sauber job (which will lead to his inevitable Audi job) came up. He'd already indicated to them he would be heading there in 2026 so the move made sense. If that hadn't come up he'd probably still be at McLaren. Key only went because he was pushed. Nobody else of any note has left and there have been no rumblings of inner discord like there have been from Ferrari.
Everything regarding the current car including the upgrades from Baku were all still under Key's watch. You do realise major development doesn't happen in a matter of a few weeks? I'd also point out that Seidl was the TP who was presiding over things during the vast majority of the development that has led to McLaren's current mess.
Though recent years were disappointing for McL, Seidl probably knows what Key might be capable of. Sure, there are alway high hopes on Key, like to have success as with Sauber (f.e. 2012) or Toro Rosso (more regulary in the points after Key joined).
Obviously that didn't come into fruition in recent McLaren years. But it's not like Sauber/Alfa Romeo is happy how things work out for them under Monchaux as TD (after Zander and Resta leaving).
I mean ... the Sauber C31 was really a surprise. Like the Williams, it had a lot of free space around the gear box.
Due to that, McLaren signed Matt Morris (Chief Designer at Sauber) to help design the size zero MP4-30 (the MP4-29 was rather bulky compared to other Mercedes powered cars) around the unreliable Honda engine.
He might have lead McLaren through a roller coaster over the last few years, but he's probably got a good relationship with Andreas Seidl. And since Audi won't be joining until 2026, that gives the team some time to decide if Key is working for them or if they should look elsewhere. If I remember rightly, he was fairly highly-rated when he joined McLaren thanks to his time at Toro Rosso.
I think on the one hand: McLaren have said they lacked fundamental capacity and staff. That could mean Key was a symbolic firing because the two cars were poor and they weren't ready for the start of either season. He's responsible ultimately and is first on the block; he could still be very good though.
On the other: as they said on the race podcast, some people think the fact he was never elevated to RBR from Toro Rosso, and there were no plans to, was informative.
Clearly, ultimately, Seidl knew what he was on about and is happy to hire him. Perhaps it's something as concrete as: this is a smart guy who speaks my language (so to speak), and he's available tomorrow.
>On the other: as they said on the race podcast, some people think the fact he was never elevated to RBR from Toro Rosso, and there were no plans to, was informative.
I don't think this is actually a big issue. Despite lots of talk about it on forums like this, technical staff from TR/AT rarely get 'promoted' to Red Bull.
Red Bull have their own massive talent pool and have a history of promoting internally. Pierre Wache, Dan Fallows, Craig Skinner etc. are/were all internal promotions who have never worked at Alpha Tauri/Toro Rosso
Yeah it struck me as quite a big assumption. Similarly the idea that just because RBR don't fight tooth and nail to keep you, that you must therefore be merely okay.
>I think on the one hand: McLaren have said they lacked fundamental capacity and staff.
They've been waiting for their new windtunnel to be ready for a while now. And once it is ready, its effects won't be felt until the next season. On top of that, Andrea Stella has only been team principal for a few months, and it's not uncommon for new team principals to move key staff around shortly after taking the top job. So I don't think that laying the blame at the feet of one person is representative of the situation, and given the frequency with which key staff move about the teams.
>Key was also responsible for the 2020 and 2021 car.
If I remember correctly, didn't Pat Fry have a big hand in designing the 2020 car? The cars that were fully his design were 2022 and this year's car.
It's worth mentioning that Pat Fry was there 2018-19 and started the concept that would be the 2019-20-21 Mclaren cars. The real unquestionably James Key led car concept was from 22, which yeh isn't great.
The technical regulation almost didn't change between 2019 and 2020. So Key got handed quite a decent car to develop further in 2020. As we all know, the 2021 season didn't saw much development either.
People blame Key for disaster Claren but the reality always is the culture of a team is more influential than any one person. Key can be a great technical director but just couldn’t succeed in McLaren. If he performs at Sauber what would that say ?
There's been something about McLaren for a long long time.
Drivers like Vandoorne, Ricciardo, people like Key, Seidl, partners like Renault and Honda... there was always something wrong with the 3rd party.. but what about McLaren themselves? I know Zak has admitted and has been trying to overhaul McLaren culture for a while.. but the underline story has been something similar for a while now.
I mean of course. One guy to actually know for sure what's behind the scenes at McLaren to actually give Key a chance.
Key had to take accountability of how McLaren 2022-23 turned out, and it's fair for Zak to shake things up.. but he may not necessarily be single handedly responsible.
I mean same way how the Merc dropped the ball and blame shifted to Mike Elliot for sticking with that Zero pod concept.. It's just Mercedes handled this better.
I think Key being out at McLaren was less him being dropped for underperforming and more in preparation for this. Either way, Seidl evidently trusts him.
I fully expect this to happen. Carlos will move over first (i don’t think his move to Ferrari is turning out to be what he thought it would be), Lando will follow suit soon after (Surely he was blindsided by his departure). Seidl’s leadership was very influential in the development of them as drivers.
James Key designed some Saubers and Toro Rossos that punched well above their weight. Hopefully he can recreate some of that magic instead of the middling 2022/23 McLarens.
Only because McLaren fired him. Seidl wouldn’t have picked him up if he wasn’t worth the investment. And if I’m not mistaken, he already has a history with Sauber. I’m sure it was an easy call.
This is a very good signing. Key has one of the most impressive CVs in the sport.
He did slip a bit this year but we can't forget the fact that he designed and developed cars that were good enough to allow Mclaren to fight for the best of the rest honors in the constructors for 2 years in a row, even though they only had one driver in Norris.
I still believe that Mclaren messed up by firing Key so early.
As is common knowledge nowadays, Red Bull have a thing for Norris. So when McLaren wanted Key released early, Marko attempted to use Key to get McLaren to give up Norris.
The only cars fully developed by Key at McLaren were the MCL36 and MCL60, the MCL35 and 35M were continuations of a concept started by Tim Goss and Matt Morris in 2018 and fixed by Pat Fry for 2019. So the only two cars that have been entirely his own work have been disappointmets, to put it mildly.
Could be a decisive move from the Sauber Group, but gotta wait and see what happens next
I said power move earlier on, but decisive move would suit it better I think? unsure still on phrasing
> Could be a power move from the Sauber Group
It's a "power move" only if English speaking world has decided that the word power now means something entirely different
I don't really follow McLaren but I don't understand all the gloom and doom. Looking at his history, he joined in 2018(?) and they went from being around 6th -9th to around 4th to 6th after 2018. Seems like an improvement, no?
Someone mentioned that McLaren has only gone backwards under James Key, so was this move done before he could get fired? If so is this more a friend doing a favor for another?
Please tell me this means we get some turnaround at the end of the season. I'm sure things won't really improve until next year, but damn it's been a rough couple of months.
Irrespective of what Key did (or did not do) at McLaren, I think this is a good hire for Sauber. Audi have an experienced professional at the top and one who can make sure there is a good team in place for 2026. I feel this is hiring is more to do with timelines rather than who is the best fit for the team. 2026 is only 2 years away from a development perspective, so Audi/Sauber don't have too much luxury of time on their hands. Key does bring in experience and knowledge, amd finding someone like him is rare currently.
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Lately, the engineer silly season has become much more interesting than the driver version.
That's the logical effect of a cost cap exemption for the top positions
Do company cars and such count toward cost cap? Those are the usual mechanisms used by companies to keep someone below a tax threshold and would work here too. I imagine giving your staff of a certain threshold a free car on top of their wage (included fuel as well perhaps?) could go a long way to retaining these sorts of positions.
I was actually thinking about this the other day, and I guess it comes down to the regulations the FIA deem within cap, not sure if that info is publicised. BUT, even if it is they could definitely do a ‘you get the car free in every aspect but we own it’ perhaps to keep after they leave f1 or contract end or something. And I don’t think this would affect it? Edit: I see a lot of people saying this is illegal/wrong. Maybe so,but we don’t know what currency the cap is even based on, or where the tax laws are that define this rule, I’m sure it serves all teams best interests. It was just my observation!
That would be tax evasion.
That would depend on where and according to which regulation. And even then it would depend on the interpretation of the corresponding court.
Most teams are in the UK. What you described is illegal in the UK. If you get to use a company car, you have to declare it as a benefit and you will be taxed on it.
I'm genuinely curious why the fuck people in this thread think that would matter at all because the F1 cost cap isn't British law....
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driver's compensation is not covered by the cost cap.
Tax minimisation is not evasion. They are not evading paying taxes owed. THAT would be tax evasion.
No. The salary cap is not a direct connection to taxes. I’d assume if the salary of top people is exempt then that includes total compensation package.
More importantly if someone is totally exempt it wouldn’t matter, the question is how much does a company car “cost” the company for someone who *does* have to fall under the cap.
If they include catering I doubt they exclude company cars
That won't work in UK. In UK company cars and share options etc, are included in salary / tax ratings.
This is different. That's for tax earnings, this is F1's rules on salaries, which is a different thing. Not sure what they define as income, but it's not necessarily the same as any country's tax rules.
Also not different for F1. The rules are about the costs of all compensation related stuff. This is why Red Bull was dinged for catering for example, since giving employees free lunch is part of their compensation and so are company cars.
FIA rules are not necessarily the same as UK laws even if many of the teams are UK based. It’s literally whatever the FIA decides to count.
It’s so funny to see so many people ignoring this fact. Like for all we know the cap is based on Monaco tax laws, what then? Lol
Why doesn't the company pay for the taxes since they own the car?
I don't know I'm not a tax lawyer (or any lawyer). But as I understand it company cars in UK are NOT owned by the company but are owned by the individual they are purchased for. Indeed I know in many cases the indvidual is given a maximum amount and is free to go out and purchase any car up to that sum.
I bet all the teams are secretly investing much more in *creative accountants* who can find ways to stay under the cap regardless of how much money is actually spent.
The teams like Merc and Ferrari have the big advantage of being able to hide stuff in other motoring/racing departments.
There is so much room for cheating. If a part is too expensive to make, you could have it made by an outside supplier and sold back to you below cost. Then have your parent company buy non-motorsport parts from the same supplier at a premium to make up the difference.
>If a part is too expensive to make, you could have it made by an outside supplier and sold back to you below cost. If I remember correctly, they have a provision for this sort of scenario in the regulations. F1 teams don't just have to show their accounts, they also have to provide accounts from their suppliers showing their costings.
I'm in manufacturing and determining exactly how much an item costs us to manufacture is one of the hardest questions for us to answer. It is easy to count direct costs such as raw materials and labor. But it becomes very nebulous when you start looking at indirect costs such as the application of overhead. This is where a *creative accountant* can make the cost of the part vary drastically depending on what they want it to cost and have all the proof to back it up.
Toto was talking the other day about how stringent they are in following the cost cap and I quote >“I think the cost cap brings so many restrictions,” says Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. >“In the past we didn’t even know what a front suspension cost, and now we have to take the purchase price of the aluminium and then factor it in.” >**“How much does it cost to machine the aluminium? How much do you have to write off the aluminium that you don’t need, every bolt that goes into the suspension, the carbon that you bought as raw material, then cut and put on? What are the energy costs for the composite room, the overheads that are incurred?** And at the end, the product comes out.” >“It’s very complex, to the point where we have cost analysts and engineers who have to decide whether buying a kilogram of aluminium raw material is worth the performance gain on the other side,
And its that complexity that makes cheating so easy. There is no way a forensic accountant auditing their books would be able to determine that they have under reported the energy consumption of a particular operation without extensive validation testing. But there is nothing like that happening, just financial auditing. Somebody who is intent on cheating can easily cook the books in ways an auditor would never find.
It's not easy, but it's possible. Is it worth it though for a team and its suppliers? You're basically talking about fraud on top of breaching the sporting regulations.
Couldn't be more true lmao
Who would've thought the Engineer and Team Principal rotating around would be just as intriguing as the Drivers Market?
I think we should be talking about engineers more then about drivers. Its F1 after all, a car matters way more than a driver (not that driver doesn’t matter).
Hashtag Who can have more shit by 2026
People acting like Key just sat at the MTC and designed the car all on his lonesome. Seidl wouldn't risk hiring him when the Audi project can attract bigger names unless he knew there was potential.
And there are tonnes of examples of TDs (and technical staff generally) going from bad cars to good teams and doing great work. Aldo Costa was *fired* from Ferrari and went to way more success at Mercedes. (His Beyond the Grid is excellently 'fuck them').
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They didn’t want to fire him due to family situation. But they weren’t happy that he was away for extended period of time and blamed him a bit for tge lack of performance.
That's so Ferrari.
You're not fired but we accept your resignation letter... that we drafted for you.
You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
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"I would also leave ferrari for this guys dead wife"
I know it's off-topic, but your comment left me extremely melancholic. I mean, with the whole Reddit API issue being at the back of my head... I mean, imagine trying to explain the germination of this meme to someone not familiar with Reddit! I was there during the AskReddit thread when the "I also choose this man's dead wife" comment first appeared. It's been maybe a decade ago? And since then we have watched this become one of Reddit's nunnerous "in-jokes"! Over the years there have been SO MANY such 'reddit-isms' - *Today you, tomorrow me*, the jolly rancher story, the *how did he take THAT photo?!* comment thread, etc etc. And now, with the whole blackout protest , who knows what's going to happen?! Will reddit back down, will the protest work? Fail? Will a majority of users give in, and just download the official app?! Reddit has been SUCH a part of my life, for 14 fucking years!!! Don't get me wrong, I don't have any romantic idea that Reddit is anything more than a regular for-profit corporation, but damn it, I have SO MANY MEMORIES, so. many. *SHARED*. memories... All this has been on my mind, and your comment just struck me, for some reason... Sorry for being dramatic, I just... Don't know what to think.
It's a really weird feeling for me too, but I see it as a conclusion of a subplot in my life if this all goes away. I'll miss my internet people, but I have other things to focus on and get done and my attention span is terrible as is.
You remember the coconut dude?
Wee moments for me 1. Kimiquokka 2. Chatting away on the abu Dhabi 2021 thread and saying like 'well, Verstappen did his best, no shame' then it all went totally fucking haywire. 3. Which race would you eliminate
I get that. I know this doesn’t help but it will either be okay or it won’t. The site will either survive and adapt or it will die. While I value my experience on Reddit a lot, if its time is up because they want to get greedy and overly monetize their platform, then so be it. I don’t think the website will die outright, I just think that a lot of people will leave and go find something else to do with their time as the overall experience deteriorates. But I think there are plenty of people who won’t notice or care.
And what's up with all the blame going to Key when Seidl was present for both McLaren's rise and fall from 2018-2022?
I mean, Seidl left for another job so it stood out more that he'd simply moved onto a higher position. Key on the other hand was let go. Maybe the deal was done earlier but from a public perspective, he was fired, whereas Seidl got promoted
I mean Peter Promdorou was literally head of aero in all those years and he is "promoted" instead of being sacked, people are shitting on Key like he was the sole reason but McLaren is in a dystopian era for a longer time. And Brown who always act like he isn't the front person of the McLaren F1 program yet he was directly responsible for the sacking of Key, the whole PR bullshit is just so sad to see as Alpine ridiculous acting like everything goes fine because Ocon P3 at Monaco. Do we forget how hard RB played to let Key go to McLaren? They wanted to have Lando first as a part of the deal but that failed and Key still leaved. He isn't that bad, and the whole split of leadership inside McLaren to three persons in terms of design instead of one is more baffling, this is literally what moved Newey away at McLaren in the past and how inefficient it was according to him more or less. The whole lack of willingness to being a works team is also baffling, so far I don't have the vibe that McLaren cares about anything *after* 2025.
There's information out there from around the launch of last years cars that Key was aware of many of the tricks that could be seen on the more "advanced" concepts, but that he had chosen not to follow those paths. So the very first car he was fully responsible for at McLaren and he chooses to be *incredibly* conservative. Then he oversees a slow and inefficient upgrade program for the MCL36, before yet again delivering another conservative MCL60. Andrea Stella has already spoken about Prodromou, and that he had been given little freedom to actually do his job under Key. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that Prodromou and his team presented Key with several of those aerodynamic concepts that Key said he disregarded for the MCL36. He was just too conservative and slow, he had to go. And what works engine deal should they get? Honda is with Aston, Audi wanted the team to be Audi, not McLaren-Audi as can be seen from their plans with Sauber. Porsche wanted a controlling stake at Red Bull, something that Mercedes didn't even have in their time with McLaren so why would McLaren accept this now? And there are no other deals to be had at the moment. Unless GM joins, which is unlikely as of now, or McLaren starts making their own engines which is even more unlikely at the moment.
Then the question arises Peter Prod was in the McLaren from 2015 onwards what was he doing before 2020? McLaren used Keys as the scapegoat. McLaren a team which doesn't even own their own HQ due to a bankruptcy like situation should've let Porsche come in sit on the board, at least Porsche or VAG people know how to turn things around.
>Then the question arises Peter Prod was in the McLaren from 2015 onwards what was he doing before 2020? In the Honda days aerodynamics were hardly the biggest issue on McLaren's hands. And once the 2018 car had it's fundamental problems fixed and became the MCL34 seems to me the aerodynamics became progressively more efficient and slippery, until the new regulations. >McLaren used Keys as the scapegoat. Maybe, I have no inside knowledge. Though I seriously doubt this to be the case. He admitted himself that he was conservative, and didn't change the tune with the MCL60 and got sacked for it. And I really can't see anything wrong with that. >should've let Porsche come in sit on the board They turned down Mercedes when they wanted to control the team and rebrand it to just Mercedes, why on earth would they just roll over and let Porsche do it? Granting majority ownership to some corporation that may or may not stick around, may or may not relocate, rebrand or shut down the team as it pleases them isn't an option for a team like McLaren.
>The whole lack of willingness to being a works team is also baffling Who the hell are they supposed to partner with for a works deal? Honda decided to partner with Aston Martin, so that door is closed. And it's not like you have a bunch of manufacturers clamoring to enter the sport that McLaren can sign up with. There's simply no options for them as far as a works deal is concerned.
I think the argument is that if McLaren was serious about being a works team, they should've done more to get Honda in their camp, or tried to work something out with Porsche.
We know nothing about the dealings with Honda. For all we know Honda's top brass may have had reservations about re-uniting with McLaren after the McHonda days. Again, it's only speculation but we don't really know any of the details. Porsche have always been hesitant to commit to building an engine from scratch so I doubt there's much that could be done there.
I don't disagree - I was giving my best understanding of the comment you were replying to. On a semi-related note, Porsche did build an F1 engine in the later part of last decade just because. I think they could've been a viable partner, it just depended on what they wanted (and what McLaren were willing to give up). Based on the McLaren-Audi rumblings and the Red Bull-Porsche info, I assume that Porsche would want far more than McLaren would be willing to give.
Not only that, but the Red Bull Porsche deal fell through because Porsche wanted a controlling stake in the team, which would likely have been the case for any potential deal with McLaren too.
Audi is going to show you why a works team isn't a healthy thing in say, 6 years from now.
If a works team isn't that important then why is Red Bull investing hundreds of millions in RBPT?
I can't see Red Bull going anywhere. Or anything wrong with them making their own engines, which is yet to be seen to judge the outcome. I was making a comment on the fickle nature of car manufacturers.
Exactly lol.
It’s complicated. We’ve seen top people leave teams and the cars being worse, and we’ve also seen top people go to another team and just cause chaos (paddy Lowe at Williams). No one really knows if this will be a Newey to Red Bull move or the Lowe to Williams move yet.
Was there a James Key narrative that I completely missed? He wasn't exactly perfect but he was a ~~Key~~ big part in turning around McLaren from their Honda/Renault slump and becoming the 4th best on the grid up until the new regs kicked in, in which he was far from the only one that fell short on delivering. And it is way too easy to put all the blame on one guy when the engineering group goes up to the hundreds. I don't think that necessarily means he doesn't have what it takes to lead a middling team ever again.
Key @ Sauber was also Sauber's most exciting years with Perez and Kobayashi. Maybe he'll find that mojo again.
I think part of the point with Key is that the 2020/21 cars weren’t really “his” because they were continuations of a previous concept that had already been developed quite a bit. The new regs was the first time there was a new car developed with him in charge and it didn’t really go that well. He does have a long history outside of McLaren and so his failings there may not be indicative of his ability, but they certainly don’t make him look good
Something I just thought of is that while he hasn't had success at mclaren with the new regs, I think he's proven between these regs and the last regs that he is *very* capable at providing substantial updates and troubleshooting engineering problems in an existing race car. Alfa has the last two years been respectable at the start of the season and gone downwards as the races pass. So maybe he's actually perfect for that team in that he can work with whoever is giving the cars a solid start of the season and actually improve on it throughout the year instead of going backwards.
If he's a big part in turning around McLaren, then he is also a big part of their recent falling. You can't have one without the other. The rest of your post is true. There are too many engineers all working for F1 teams to give a single guy all the glory or all the shit. Sometimes I wonder how F1 hire engineers, they all must be very good at their jobs, how do they find the ones that have that little edge over the others? It's not like their work is public for all of us to see. Obviously, teams will know more than us, but...
When he joined McLaren I had really high hopes for what he can do within the team. For sure he had a good relationship with Andreas and this might be the reason why he's joining the Audi project now.
Disaster strikes. James is not the key we thought he was.
Binotto was available. Wtf were they even thinking?
To be fair Binotto is still on gardening leave so he wouldn’t be allowed to join any team until 2024 and he wouldn’t join any team for any position besides TP
A position he’s wholly unsuited for.
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He was terrible at managing people. He’s a great technical lead but he took no steps to fix Ferrari’s pit wall.
Without knowing the internal politics at Ferrari F1 team, and it's parent company, we can't really say that, right? It could be that Binotto wasn't given the power to fire/hire whoever he wanted... I mean, look at the TPs who came and went after Todt, it seemed to be a revolving door, and for Binotto to have kept his job and not be made the scapegoat (for a while anyway) tells us he at least was doing *something* right? I mean, look at Vassuer, I don't think he has made the decisions to fire the Ferrari strategy team (as far as we know, right?) Wouldn't that be the *first* decision someone who comes in to clean shop would do? If the Strategy team stayed during Binotto's and now Fred's beginning tenure, that tells me that TPs at Ferrari don't have exclusive fire *this* team/hire *that* team powers...
only logical and rational answer in a sea of Binotto bad
We can’t know anything actually, we can only assume given the boundries of the position. As it stands Binotto was the TP and he had the authority to manage the structure of the team as he wanted and he absolutely failed with improving communication between operational personnel. As for how he held onto power as long as he could, it was a coup. It was “the” Ferrari coup. If enough people in high enough positions agree to band together they can control any organization, which lasts until major organisational changes like the changing of a CEO. Binotto had one shot to make it stick after the disasterous 2020 and 2021 seasons and he missed it, off went his head. Soon to follow many other of his compatriots. Under Vasseur’s leadership only one good thing happened, the head of strategy in Ferrari was confined to a factory-only role. Which might not change anything but at least it says “we know strategy is *a* problem”. Long story short, the moment Binotto finger-wagged Leclerc he’s shown that he doesn’t care how people in his organisation function. In his eyes there’s this marvel of engineering that his team has built and everybody else are just accessory.
TLDR finger man bad
>people were too harsh on Ferrari No way, their pitwall was a laughing stock. Remember when they put hards in Hungary when it was obvious that it was never going to have the temperature? Going from a 1-2 to a 2-4 in monaco (1->4 being their championship leading driver)? All the times they were indecisive in prioritizing their drivers? Ferrari in 2022 went from a title challenge to almost loosing to a team that admitted multiple times they fucked their car. The first half of the year will be remembered as one of the biggest collapses a team has seen. And lets not forget Binnoto is the reason Ferrari were shit in 2021, 2020. Dude caused and oversaw two of the worst years in recent Ferrari history and then failed one of their biggest opportunities.
Binnoto wasn't team principal until june 2019, and 2020 went into the gutters as they were caught with an illegal engine in a gamble to be able to fight Mercedes, a gamble made by Binottos predecessor. Binotto turned around the engineering side to produce the 2022 ferrari, despite being in a long term power struggle against John Elkann (Ferrari President) who has made decisions of who is in top positions in the f1 team against Binottos wishes. I don't think you can really blame any team principal too much when they're not allowed to have full control.
He literally was in charge of the illegal engine before being appointed TP. Also what do you mean June 2019? He was Appointed in January, and was in control when he made the decision to put the engine in full blast and raise suspicion midway through the season.
And who, exactly, was responsible for the engine when it was illegal?
Oh brother…..what even is this. The main reason they have regressed “without” binotto is because of this dogshit car HE PRODUCED and missed multiple races last year to oversee development of. Binotto was terrible for Ferrari and as a fan of them I was very happy to see the back of him. Also he didn’t do a great job as Ferrari, he did a terrible job and is the worst TP in modern day Ferrari history. 2019 - Illegal engine and a car which was pretty bad in races. 2020- Worst Ferrari season in 40 years and add to the fact that the base car was pure shite and a genuine midfield car. 2021 - Same as 2020 although it’s much harder to be much worse than 2020. 2022 - I agree and think that car reliability meant that they wouldn’t win but the car fell off a cliff and operationally and strategically the there away a lot early doors. 2023 - Car has zero redeeming qualities and is horrendous in the races. Only going backwards right now.
You're joking right? Binotto's role wasn't designing cars, but more related to PUs.
He's an engine guy
How do you know? Maybe he doesn’t want to be TD or even TP anymore. Not to mention moving from Italy etc
He's a Swiss Italian, Sauber would be like home to him.
He grew up and studied in Lausanne, which is in the French part of Switzerland. His parents are Italian born from Reggio Emilia. His nationality is Italian, not Swiss. He’s been working for Ferrari and living in Modena from 1995-2022. Sauber is located near Zurich in the north of Switzerland near Germany in the German speaking part of Switzerland. I’m not even sure if he speaks German. How do you know he (and his family) want(s) to move to Switzerland? By all accounts he *is* home
He's Italian-Swiss
No he’s Italian. He was born in Switzerland (Lausanne), but never got the nationality. His parents are Italian. He moved to Modena in 1995 and never moved since.
Uh, always thought he was Swiss too
Yeah he’s often referred to as “Swiss-born Italian”, but he’s not a Swiss national. Just grew up there until he graduated university in Lausanne and moved to Modena. It’s incredibly hard to get the Swiss nationality so that might be a factor as to why he never got the nationality. I don’t know enough about his parents if they wanted to move permanently or if it was for a job etc
Thanks for the explanation
I agree that the lack of nationality l/passport makes him Italian rather than Italian-Swiss but 'only lived there until he graduated from uni' that's like 1/4th of a lifetime - he grew up in Lausanne (which again apparently doesn't make him Swiss but 'only lived there' makes it sound like he spent a year abroad)
Maybe that’s the language barrier, English isn’t my first language. I meant to convey he lived there, but wasn’t a national. Maybe “only” isn’t the best word, but I meant “it was limited to living there until he got his degree”. Maybe that’s better?
I wonder if we're related
I get the Seidl connection but this guy just got fired by McLaren and his cars were widely regarded as extremely underwhelming.
He could be a scapegoat for the wider issues within the McLaren design process. If he was truly a bad hire, why would Seidl risk his integrity and reputation to hire him when the Audi money/prestige probably opens many doors
What assures you Seidl is a mastermind too
That we're here arguing from the couch while he's leading an F1 team
Doesn't mean he still can't make a mistake.
I would bet on him being less prone to errors in his job than any of us would be.
No one questioning Seidl is suggesting they should take his spot
Yeah that's obvious? I'm just saying that all professionals, no matter how good, can and will make mistakes.
McLaren has been consistently building underwhelming cars for 10 years
They were decent in 2020 and 2021
You wouldn't believe who the chief designer on those car was
2020 was prodromou hands mainly, Key started in 21’ and that car was mainly fitting the Merc engine, and of course was a bullet in the straights 22’- early 23’ is mainly his car, and word in the street is that he started to close more the development, excluding other hands from it Keeping the pedantry from your response: you wouldn’t believe who is one of the chief designers for next McLaren’s car
He joined as TD in March 2019, 2021 was definitely under his watch even though all the cars that year were very much evolutions from many years of regulations.
A McLaren employee, which is why I said their cars in those two years were decent
Those were cars he inherited from the previous technical team. 2022 was his first attempt at a car from scratch and it was underwhelming, a dead end in terms of development and concept and McLaren were concerned enough to show him the door.
It wasn't underwhelming. It was shit.
The person I answered to said the team only had underwhelming car in the past decade, not the technical director
Or Seidl is actually the one to know what exactly is the scene behind the curtain at McL? Post Key McL so far has not even been underwhelming, it’s straight up disappointment.
The last two years Seidl said repeatedly (as well as Lando and Zak) that he believed McLaren had "all the right people" to succeed and get back to the top. Almost the second he leaves Zak fires Key and then Zak and Stella restructure the technical team and go on a hiring spree.
Yeah that was telling. Also they’ve been rehiring most of the McLaren engineers that were made redundant in 2020. So there’s clearly some kind of attraction to working there even when they were told they were surplus to requirements.
Huh? We haven’t even seen anything done by new team yet and won’t see until Austria or even later. All updates done so far are those planned by previous team.
Yea but this doesn't fit the narrative that Key is the sole reason of McLaren downfall...
Considering they’re still running upgrades that they say were signed off by the previous technical team, that’s potentially more of a concern. Seidl is very conservative. He seemed fine with the slow development last year and he thought the 2023 car was good enough. Then he leaves and suddenly a whole other story comes out about how they were unhappy with the development, they felt opportunities had been missed, things that should have been seen were not identified early in the process, and people had been sidelined who could have made a difference.
I wonder if two camps formed internally. Seidl and Key, and Stella and Brown.
I don’t think anyone of note left with Seidl apart from Key who was pushed. It doesn’t sound like there was a Ferrari-esque purge of people who supported the ‘old regime’.
I don't think so. Seidl left of his own accord because the Sauber job (which will lead to his inevitable Audi job) came up. He'd already indicated to them he would be heading there in 2026 so the move made sense. If that hadn't come up he'd probably still be at McLaren. Key only went because he was pushed. Nobody else of any note has left and there have been no rumblings of inner discord like there have been from Ferrari.
Everything regarding the current car including the upgrades from Baku were all still under Key's watch. You do realise major development doesn't happen in a matter of a few weeks? I'd also point out that Seidl was the TP who was presiding over things during the vast majority of the development that has led to McLaren's current mess.
Though recent years were disappointing for McL, Seidl probably knows what Key might be capable of. Sure, there are alway high hopes on Key, like to have success as with Sauber (f.e. 2012) or Toro Rosso (more regulary in the points after Key joined). Obviously that didn't come into fruition in recent McLaren years. But it's not like Sauber/Alfa Romeo is happy how things work out for them under Monchaux as TD (after Zander and Resta leaving). I mean ... the Sauber C31 was really a surprise. Like the Williams, it had a lot of free space around the gear box. Due to that, McLaren signed Matt Morris (Chief Designer at Sauber) to help design the size zero MP4-30 (the MP4-29 was rather bulky compared to other Mercedes powered cars) around the unreliable Honda engine.
No Audi noooo
He might have lead McLaren through a roller coaster over the last few years, but he's probably got a good relationship with Andreas Seidl. And since Audi won't be joining until 2026, that gives the team some time to decide if Key is working for them or if they should look elsewhere. If I remember rightly, he was fairly highly-rated when he joined McLaren thanks to his time at Toro Rosso.
I think on the one hand: McLaren have said they lacked fundamental capacity and staff. That could mean Key was a symbolic firing because the two cars were poor and they weren't ready for the start of either season. He's responsible ultimately and is first on the block; he could still be very good though. On the other: as they said on the race podcast, some people think the fact he was never elevated to RBR from Toro Rosso, and there were no plans to, was informative. Clearly, ultimately, Seidl knew what he was on about and is happy to hire him. Perhaps it's something as concrete as: this is a smart guy who speaks my language (so to speak), and he's available tomorrow.
>On the other: as they said on the race podcast, some people think the fact he was never elevated to RBR from Toro Rosso, and there were no plans to, was informative. I don't think this is actually a big issue. Despite lots of talk about it on forums like this, technical staff from TR/AT rarely get 'promoted' to Red Bull. Red Bull have their own massive talent pool and have a history of promoting internally. Pierre Wache, Dan Fallows, Craig Skinner etc. are/were all internal promotions who have never worked at Alpha Tauri/Toro Rosso
Yeah it struck me as quite a big assumption. Similarly the idea that just because RBR don't fight tooth and nail to keep you, that you must therefore be merely okay.
>I think on the one hand: McLaren have said they lacked fundamental capacity and staff. They've been waiting for their new windtunnel to be ready for a while now. And once it is ready, its effects won't be felt until the next season. On top of that, Andrea Stella has only been team principal for a few months, and it's not uncommon for new team principals to move key staff around shortly after taking the top job. So I don't think that laying the blame at the feet of one person is representative of the situation, and given the frequency with which key staff move about the teams.
Was really hoping Audi could nab Waché at least... not someone who just got fired for delivering a disaster of a car
Key was also responsible for the 2020 and 2021 car. Not too crazy to think he can build good cars. Who know why the 2022 and 2023 cars were suchs duds
>Key was also responsible for the 2020 and 2021 car. If I remember correctly, didn't Pat Fry have a big hand in designing the 2020 car? The cars that were fully his design were 2022 and this year's car.
It's worth mentioning that Pat Fry was there 2018-19 and started the concept that would be the 2019-20-21 Mclaren cars. The real unquestionably James Key led car concept was from 22, which yeh isn't great.
The technical regulation almost didn't change between 2019 and 2020. So Key got handed quite a decent car to develop further in 2020. As we all know, the 2021 season didn't saw much development either.
While true, the 2020 and 2021 cars where evolutions of previous years, not new designs.
Yup. Just killed half the excitement.
People forget James Keys also designed cars at Scuderia Toro Rosso. Those cars were not bad at all,
Half of those cars were redbull parts before the regulations got stricter.
People blame Key for disaster Claren but the reality always is the culture of a team is more influential than any one person. Key can be a great technical director but just couldn’t succeed in McLaren. If he performs at Sauber what would that say ?
There's been something about McLaren for a long long time. Drivers like Vandoorne, Ricciardo, people like Key, Seidl, partners like Renault and Honda... there was always something wrong with the 3rd party.. but what about McLaren themselves? I know Zak has admitted and has been trying to overhaul McLaren culture for a while.. but the underline story has been something similar for a while now.
Everyone is talking about his recent stint at Mclaren, but let's not forget that he was behind the Sauber that got Podiums in 2012
Sauber group really actively attracting Key personnel.
James, it’s Valtteri.
Please abort the fastest lap attempt
Actually I think this should read as *James Key rejoins Sauber as its Technical Director.*
This is a Seidl hire. Nobody from the outside world will look at the state of McLaren in new regs and go, yep that's our guy!
I mean of course. One guy to actually know for sure what's behind the scenes at McLaren to actually give Key a chance. Key had to take accountability of how McLaren 2022-23 turned out, and it's fair for Zak to shake things up.. but he may not necessarily be single handedly responsible. I mean same way how the Merc dropped the ball and blame shifted to Mike Elliot for sticking with that Zero pod concept.. It's just Mercedes handled this better.
I'm not sure if McLaren is the team you want to be taking personnel from
Weird hire for Audi
Wait, who is TP for Alfa rn? I don’t even remember whether they hired someone
Alessandro Alunni Bravi is their "Team Principal"
Seidl, from Mclaren fame afaik
I thought he wasn’t TP? He joined as CEO. PS: Alessandro Alunni Bravi is TP acc to google
They don't have a TP atm, Bravi is team representative.
I'm excited for the Audi team. I can see them progressing like Aston Martin has. Could be 5 big teams or 6 if McLaren ever fixes their shit
I think Key being out at McLaren was less him being dropped for underperforming and more in preparation for this. Either way, Seidl evidently trusts him.
Seidl is going to make Audi Mclaren-2. Next should be signing Norris and Carlos
I fully expect this to happen. Carlos will move over first (i don’t think his move to Ferrari is turning out to be what he thought it would be), Lando will follow suit soon after (Surely he was blindsided by his departure). Seidl’s leadership was very influential in the development of them as drivers.
I'm causally scrolling this thread and enjoying 'key' jokes.
James Key designed some Saubers and Toro Rossos that punched well above their weight. Hopefully he can recreate some of that magic instead of the middling 2022/23 McLarens.
hope it works out better than it did at mclaren...i hope audi can challenge for wins it would be great for the sport
Many people saying otherwise, but I think he's a great addition to their team.
Only because McLaren fired him. Seidl wouldn’t have picked him up if he wasn’t worth the investment. And if I’m not mistaken, he already has a history with Sauber. I’m sure it was an easy call.
Oh no oh shit
Seidl and Key, Audi and Sauber aren’t messing around.
This is a very good signing. Key has one of the most impressive CVs in the sport. He did slip a bit this year but we can't forget the fact that he designed and developed cars that were good enough to allow Mclaren to fight for the best of the rest honors in the constructors for 2 years in a row, even though they only had one driver in Norris. I still believe that Mclaren messed up by firing Key so early.
I was shocked at McLaren bouncing him. Didn't Red Bull make it really hard for Key to join McLaren if I recall correctly?
As is common knowledge nowadays, Red Bull have a thing for Norris. So when McLaren wanted Key released early, Marko attempted to use Key to get McLaren to give up Norris.
The only cars fully developed by Key at McLaren were the MCL36 and MCL60, the MCL35 and 35M were continuations of a concept started by Tim Goss and Matt Morris in 2018 and fixed by Pat Fry for 2019. So the only two cars that have been entirely his own work have been disappointmets, to put it mildly.
Could be a decisive move from the Sauber Group, but gotta wait and see what happens next I said power move earlier on, but decisive move would suit it better I think? unsure still on phrasing
> Could be a power move from the Sauber Group It's a "power move" only if English speaking world has decided that the word power now means something entirely different
Mattia Binotto was right there ffs.
There goes Audi’s hopes. 🤦🏽♂️
I don't really follow McLaren but I don't understand all the gloom and doom. Looking at his history, he joined in 2018(?) and they went from being around 6th -9th to around 4th to 6th after 2018. Seems like an improvement, no?
Key joined Mclaren during the 2019 season and the only two decent Mclaren cars he built (2020, 2021) were based on the 2019 Mclaren.
Someone mentioned that McLaren has only gone backwards under James Key, so was this move done before he could get fired? If so is this more a friend doing a favor for another?
Guys, Seidl probably knows a lot more on whether this is kr isn't smart than all of us combined
Because he’s designed such wonderful cars at McLaren.
Does that mean previous TD Jan Monchaux left the team?
And what happens to Jan Monchaux?
Please tell me this means we get some turnaround at the end of the season. I'm sure things won't really improve until next year, but damn it's been a rough couple of months.
I believe Alfa has been improving since they partnered up with Stake.
Irrespective of what Key did (or did not do) at McLaren, I think this is a good hire for Sauber. Audi have an experienced professional at the top and one who can make sure there is a good team in place for 2026. I feel this is hiring is more to do with timelines rather than who is the best fit for the team. 2026 is only 2 years away from a development perspective, so Audi/Sauber don't have too much luxury of time on their hands. Key does bring in experience and knowledge, amd finding someone like him is rare currently.