Breaking news
Formula 1
McLaren: Red Bull's demands for Key too much
McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown admits that James Key is unlikely to take up his role of technical director within this season as he is not interested in doing a deal with Red Bull to have the Englishman released early.
Adam Cooper
Edited: Sep 2, 2018, 10:53 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
McLaren announced in July that Key would be joining the team, much to the frustration of Red Bull, who insisted that he had a contract with Toro Rosso.
The two parties had been talking about an early release for Key, but the announcement took Red Bull by surprise, and put a spanner in the works of the negotiations.
There have been suggestions that Red Bull might be willing to do a deal that would involve Lando Norris released by McLaren to drive for Toro Rosso next year, but the company's motorsport boss Helmut Marko says that it's simply a matter of money.
"We told McLaren what would solve the problem, and we didn't hear anything," Marko told Motorsport.com. "We are not in a hurry. It's financial – we don't mix things."
Brown confirmed that there were no ongoing discussions, and said he was not interested in the figure that Red Bull had suggested.
"We're in no dialogue with them," said Brown when asked by Motorsport.com. "They have named their terms. I'm not interested in the terms that they've put forward."
Brown admitted that he didn't know when Key would be free to start his new job.
"We have signed a contract with James, so he will be joining McLaren as technical director. We're still working through the timing of that. I think it's high unlikely that he will join us this season – and we don't have a specific start date yet."
Marko added that there is no need to include Norris in any deal because the Englishman will either have a McLaren race seat or be available anyway as of September 30th: "At the moment there's a clear situation. If they give him a drive by the end of September, he is fixed. If not he is free."
Brown confirmed the team is in talks with former McLaren and Ferrari man Pat Fry to return to the Woking camp.
"We are talking to a variety of people to strengthen our technical department. We've hired some people internally, that we've not really spoken about, and we'll have some other people joining the team that we'll speak about in due course."
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Mercedes floats third car idea to help young drivers
Next article FIA promises action on F1 'slave team' fears
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Adam Cooper
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Formula 1
Formula 1
Japanese GP
Apr 10, 2024
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
Formula 1
Formula 1 Apr 10, 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
Andretti F1 team formally opens new Silverstone facility
Formula 1
Formula 1 Apr 10, 2024
Andretti F1 team formally opens new Silverstone facility
More from
McLaren
What's behind Oscar Piastri's split with Mark Webber – and what it means for his F1 career
Formula 1
Formula 1
Sao Paulo GP
4 d
What's behind Oscar Piastri's split with Mark Webber – and what it means for his F1 career
Latest news
Carson Hocevar and Cleetus McFarland win LeMullets 2026 in epic finish
General
Misc General 4 h
Carson Hocevar and Cleetus McFarland win LeMullets 2026 in epic finish
TV ratings released for NASCAR Cup season finale
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Homestead-Miami
10 h
TV ratings released for NASCAR Cup season finale
Chase Elliott's car chief leaves Hendrick for NASCAR Truck crew chief role
NASCAR Truck
NSTR NASCAR Truck
Homestead
11 h
Chase Elliott's car chief leaves Hendrick for NASCAR Truck crew chief role
Feature
Discover prime content
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Formula 1
By Kevin Turner
Top 10 F1 cars of the 1970s
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe