James Key

James Key
Full name	James Robert Key
Date of birth	14 January 1972 (1972-01-14), Chelmsford, England
Occupation	Technical Director
Employer	N/A
Years active	1998 - present

James Robert Key (born January 14, 1972) is a Formula One engineer and Technical Director who has worked for many teams. In 1998, he joined Jordan, spending several years as a data engineer, then became race engineer for Takuma Sato.

Shortly after the team's ownership transferred to MF1 Racing, Key became the team's Technical Director during the 2005 season following a brief period as Technical Co-ordinator. He was one of the youngest Technical Directors of a Formula One team, at the age of 33 years, along with Sam Michael (born in 1971)

From 2006 until 2010 he retained his position during the team's transition through Spyker to Force India.

In 2010, Key moved to Sauber, replacing Willy Rampf as Technical Director. He remained there for almost two years, before leaving in February 2012 to accept an undisclosed offer with one of the British-based teams.

From 2012 to 2019, he was the Technical Director at Toro Rosso, having replaced Giorgio Ascanelli in the role.

In 2018, Key was hired by McLaren in a bid to overhaul their technical department following a disappointing campaign that year. Despite this, Key had little input in the 2019 MCL34 due to gardening leave, it was instead overseen by Pat Fry in a temporary capacity.

His tenure at McLaren was marked by a continued upturn in performance for the Woking outfit who finished 3rd in 2020 with his first design, the MCL35.

Despite finishing fourth in 2021, the MCL35M was yet another strong design by Key with a brace of podium finishes and eventually culminated in victory at that year's Italian Grand Prix, his first as Technical Director.

However, due to a disappointing 2022 that saw McLaren slip to 5th in the constructors, Key was dismissed in March 2023 as technical director following the launch of that year's MCL60.

Career History

Years	Team	Job Title
1998-2005	Jordan Grand Prix	Data Engineer Race Engineer Technical Co-ordinator Technical Director
2006	Midland F1 Racing	Technical Director
2007	Spyker F1	Technical Director
2008-2010	Force India	Technical Director
2010-2012	Sauber	Technical Director
2012-2019	Scuderia Toro Rosso	Technical Director
2019-2023	McLaren F1	Technical Director