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McLaren CEO Zak Brown says that the team has a plan when it comes to bringing in James Key. The Woking outfit previously announced that the current Toro Rosso technical director would be joining McLaren, despite Toro Rosso stating that Key is under contract until 2020.
Red Bull's Helmut Marko stated that McLaren jumped the gun when it came to publicly announcing Key, saying that he wouldn't be leaving Toro Rosso "for a very long time". But Brown is still confident that the move will go ahead.
"We have hired James Key and he will become our technical director," Brown said. "He does have a current agreement with Toro Rosso and of course we respect contractual situations. I think Toro Rosso and Red Bull are understandably upset that they're losing a great talent like James Key. We have a plan, we obviously knew his current employment situation and we're completely comfortable working around that situation."
Toro Rosso is believed to have approached McLaren to take Lando Norris on loan this year, a move which McLaren blocked. However, it is possible that that deal could happen for 2019 if it allowed Key to leave Toro Rosso and join McLaren.
"In the world of F1 there's always ways and opportunities to change situations," Brown said. "That's certainly something that we'd potentially consider."
He added: "We're not done yet, both in bringing in talent and with our final structure. We have a good sense of what we're going to do but that's not something that we want to make public, we just want to put our head down and get on with the job."
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C. Sainz jr
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boudy
Posts: 1,168
This is an untenable situation created by McLaren, Looks like someone is going on gardening leave. They want to force early leave from Torro Rosso looks like this is going to be the reverse of that. They will now hold Key to his contract come what may. Would it have been better if McLaren played... [Read more]