James Key leaves Sauber, next destination?

[munudeges]

Leaving Sauber for Genitals-Lotus-Rexona, what in the world would be the point of that?

Perhaps grabbing some of Bahar's non-existent cash while it's on offer?

[FrukostScones]

Sound more like he's going gardening leave there then assimilate into Lotus F1 as chief Engineer?

Leaving Sauber for Genitals-Lotus-Rexona, what in the world would be the point of that?

PE Money, homesickness...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

So X is looking at who James has worked with in the past and Mike Gascoyne's name features prominently, and you then logically believe as a result that Caterham where Gascoyne actually is are third favourites and a team where there are two dozen technical directors already are the most likely.....? I must confess, your logic naturally escapes me at times JET.

What escapes me is how you can arrive so late to a thread then start scurrilously pointing your "logic" staff. Bravo for speculating ..... nothing.
At least at Lotus James Key can put himself to use in an attempt at reaching 4th for Lotus.
I couldnt help notice you class Lotus as "technically pretty good" whom finished 5th. And Mercedes as "incompetent" whom finished 4th(90+ points ahead).

There is only one reason you would say that, and that's provocation. Of course, lets see what the mods have to say about this. I have reported both our posts.

[xpensive]

Whatever the lure, it was strong enough to make Key abandon his Sauber-baby before it turned a wheel in anger, which leads me to believe it was something far more substantal than both Lotus, Caterham or playing sixth fiddle at AMG?

[munudeges]

It certainly must have been something strong enough for him to leave being master of his own destiny so suddenly at Sauber. If he's going to another team he's going to be head honcho and I can't see him trading what he has for being sixth in line somewhere else.

I suppose we'll see.

[Byronrhys]

Its not only about leading a design team or money, JK is a family man and I think he did this in best interest of his career and his family, these guys have lives outside of F1 too...bet I'm proven wrong tomorrow though :p lol

[xpensive]

I believe the "why" was xplained today with the advent of his coyote-ugly C31, I would have walked off too.

[raymondu999]

I'm sorry I also don't get it.
I'm not doubting that he isn't talented but he hasn't really been behind a winning car yet so I feel there is a bit too much hype around him.
Ok Sauber did go from 8th to 7th in the championship in the short time that he was there - a little over a year is it not?
Force India also managed to climb one place after he left but on the other hand it could be argued that the car was still based on and evolved from his design.

So he worked at teams who cannot provide the resource of producing a winning car.
He has moved them forward as you yourself pointed out.

Imagine the potential of a man who can visibly push a team forward, at a larger team like McLaren.

Grasping it now?

It's not as simple as that. He has been able to drive small teams forwards. He has shown he can work on (relative) shoestring budgets. No one is disputing that at all. But making a points-scoring car for a midfield or even back marking team is a DIFFERENT (I'm not saying this is harder/easier) than building a winning car at a front-running team.

It could be that his skills are mostly suited to cost-cutting, and cost-efficient measures. Similarly, (note that the rest of the paragraph is purely hypothetical) put Adrian Newey in Sauber. He may not be able to get the same performance out of the budget as Key was. It could be that Newey's strengths lie when he has no budget to worry about and just focus on what he does best. Conversely again it could be that Key's strengths lie in optimization of funding and plotting out the best upgrade roadmap for the cars, and best usage of the available resources.

It's almost a case of different people having different sweet spots, and different bottlenecks. He has shown budget efficiency and has shown creativity to the point of being able to produce the Sauber's level of performance. But who knows? Maybe his understanding of aero (again, hypothetical) is already maxed out as it is - and no amount of funding will magically give you creative juices

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

It's a dead rubber now.

Hes moved to a team better than his former team. Simples.

[Tyler]

He's moving to Group Lotus' racing programme which includes Le Mans apparently:

http://www.yallaf1.com/2012/02/07/key-h ... s-project/

By the sound of it, things weren't going so well at Sauber with 'both sides feeling for some time things were not working any more'

I wonder if this means that Sauber weren't happy with the work he was doing or vice versa or both?
Very unexpected in any case for a guy with his reputation.
Maybe that's just an excuse the team are using to cover up a bigger problem of financial difficulties.

There's a lot of speculation about Williams not lasting much longer, I wonder if there's any kind of concern for Sauber, especially now that they are without BMW's backing.
Since BMW pulled out, the livery on that car has been looking very plain i.e. devoid of sponsors.
I think Williams at least have more sponsors logo's on their car than Sauber.

I'm a bit shocked actually, I would have thought that it's every engineers dream to work in F1 with it being the pinnacle of motorsport, it seems like a bit of a step back but then who knows, maybe that really interests him.

[Tyler]

Oops, sorry - didn't realise it had already been said