Sauber puts faith in new tech boss Key

Date published : 08 Apr 2010 - 11:30:04

Peter Sauber is confident new technical director James Key will play a pivotal role in helping the team reclaim its former strength, starting with working out how to get more performance out of the disappointing C29.The Hinwil-based squad has so far fallen a long way short of the impressive form it showed in pre-season, with pace and reliability problems meaning it is the only established team yet to score a point after the opening three rounds. Sauber had already announced that Key, who left the same post at Force India last month, would be replacing the retiring Willy Rampf from April 1, with Key's first involvement at the race track to come in China next weekend.Team owner Sauber who bought the team he founded back from BMW during the winter says Key's immediate focus will be to ensure the team starts to deliver better results on track before implementing what he expects will be changes to its technical structure in a bid to help it move forwards.His first Grand Prix for the team will be Shanghai, where he will also have technical responsibility at the circuit, Sauber said of Key. In the short term he will focus on exploiting the full potential of the C29, something we haven't been able to do in the first three races of the season. Looking further ahead, he will set about putting in place what he considers to be the right structure for the technical department. I'm certainly expecting there to be changes. However, these will not happen overnight. It's a process that will take place over a period of time.Before Sauber agreed to take the team on again from BMW last November, the German manufacturer had already taken the decision to slim down its workforce while the team's budget is also 40% less compared to recent seasons.Sauber believes his squad has to develop new working practices that fit better with its new streamlined era and says Key will be charged with developing these so it can maximise its high-tech infrastructure.What we have to do now is move away from the previous modus operandi and put new methods in place that will maximise efficiency, he said.This applies not only to technical development, but also to the way we operate as a team for example, how the engineers work with our two new drivers. That's something that needs time to bed in. James Key will have a wide variety of tasks. As an organisation, everything is in place to get us back to our former strengthAfter some suggested prior to the season that the Swiss outfit even had the pace to challenge the top four teams, the squad has registered just one race finish (12th place in Australia) so far.Sauber, whose team boasts one of the most advanced factories on the grid, acknowledges it is performing below the standards it should be and admits he is not completely sure why this is the case.However, he says the uncertainty surrounding the team's future following BMW's decision to quit Formula 1 for several months last year didn't help its preparations although he says it now has to start moving up the grid again.In terms of performance we are not where we expected to be or where we should be given the means we've had at our disposal in the development of the C29, he said.I'm looking for explanations myself. What is clear is that there was a lot of uncertainty around the whole team in the second half of 2009 not surprisingly, given the circumstances. Nobody within the team knew whether we would be on the grid in Bahrain. This uncertainty was only removed when I took over the team and the guys could see a future once again. Now we have the task of making up for lost time as quickly as possible.