One of the big disappointments of the year thus far has been the performance of Sauber. The cars have been neither quick, nor reliable, and neither driver has done anything to write home about. It is not surprising that while there are clearly problems with the cars, the drivers will be under scrutiny. The latest speculation is that Pedro de la Rosa could be replaced by Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado or perhaps Luca Filippi. It is not clear why this would be a good idea – unless the team needs cash – as neither man has much experience in F1 and teamed up with Kamui Kobayashi would not create a driver line-up with much technical understanding for F1. De la Rosa is a great test driver with years of experience at McLaren and that must have a value. It is our understanding that neither de la Rosa nor Kobayashi paid for his drive. The Japanese was signed on the basis that he showed amazingly well at the end of last year in two races with Toyota. What is clear that he has not lived up to those strange performances. If there was to be a replacement, therefore, it might be wiser to drop Kobayashi, although having said that Sauber may have been convinced of the value of the Kamui to attract sponsors in Japan – and no doubt F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone would not have been opposed to keeping Japanese interest in the sport alive, after the departure of both Honda and Toyota and the impending disappearance of Bridgestone.

The key problem for Sauber however is not whether to replace drivers but rather to figure out how to make the cars travel more quickly. This is vital as the team needs results to attract sponsorship in 2011 when support from BMW (in whatever form that exists, be that spponsorship or loans) will need to be replaced. The arrival of James Key as technical director is thus important as it will provide the engineers with new leadership and perhaps some new ideas. It is clear that the Swiss team really suffered after 2007 when a number of teams moved in on its aerodynamics department after the BMW F1.07 proved to be such a good car. In quick succession the team lost senior aerodynamicist John Owen to Honda (and he played a key role in Brawn’s success in 2009), Martin Bester to Williams and Dirk de Beer to Renault.

Key may be on the lookout for new aerodynamicists…