Alunni Bravi: James Key's priorities are to improve car, shape technical department

Key who was fired from McLaren back in March, was soon announced to be joining his former boss Andreas Seidl at Alfa Romeo aka Audi, the latter himself leaving the Woking squad at the start of the 2023 Formula 1 season.

Key was let go by McLaren after the dismal start for the team's 2023 F1 campaign with their MCL60 not living up to the expectations, and the team seem to have turned a corner after their former tech boss left with an impressive midseason upgrade putting them second in the pecking order behind Red Bull.

However, Seidl and Co. at Audi appear to believe Key is the right man to do the job and lead their technical department towards the Audi era which starts in 2026, and as such the British engineer will be heading to Hinwil - Sauber's Swiss headquarters - on September 1.

With Key's arrival approaching, Alunni Bravi was asked about the tasks the former will be handling, and was quoted by F1's Official Website saying: "Priority checklist for James Key will be to improve the performance of the car and to help Andreas Seidl to shape the technical department.

"As you know as a team, we are in a transformation process, and the addition of James Key brings a lot of value to our team, because James has not only been a Technical Director. He has been in different roles in the technical level of the teams he has previously been working with.

"So, I expect that he will give the contribution as everybody in the team, that we need to do a step as a team and move forward," Alunni Bravi concluded.

Indeed, Alfa Romeo are in dire need of car development, as the team is only better than AlphaTauri, scoring only nine points so far and sitting ninth in the 2023 Constructors' Championship with their Italian rivals dead last.

However, the choice of hiring Key for the top technical job at Hinwil seems to be a bit strange if one considers his results at McLaren, or the lack thereof. Does Seidl know something we don't know?