The state of play in F1's technical silly season

By:

Jake Boxall-Legge

Mar 28, 2023, 8:24 AM

McLaren's recent reshuffle of its technical team has left James Key out of work. This comes amid a series of recruitment drives around the 2023 F1 grid thanks to a settled ruleset and budget cap. Here's a look at where Key could land, and who else is in the hunt for fresh engineering talent

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It’ll be a few months before the Formula 1 driver market for next year truly begins. Thus, there’s plenty of time for the current cast of 20 drivers – and all the prospective younglings in Formula 2 – to set out their stalls for a space on the grid in 2024.

It seems, however, that the hypothetical market square in F1-ville is nonetheless occupied in these spring months after just two races. Within that, McLaren has already done its business with a restructuring of its technical department; David Sanchez will move to the team from Ferrari at the end of the year, as James Key has been let go following the team’s disappointing start to 2023. The engineer market is open for business, with no shortage of teams looking to find a bargain to turn their fortunes around.

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Jake Boxall-Legge

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Jake studied engineering at university, as his original ambition was to design racing cars. He was bad at that, and thus decided to write about them instead with an equally limited skillset. The above article is a demonstration of that. In his spare time, Jake enjoys people, places, and things.