James Key, the former technical director of Sauber, will be starting work at Scuderia Toro Rosso on September 1, which probably explains why Giorgio Ascanelli departed back in July. Key left Sauber in February, which suggests that he may have had six months of gardening leave from Sauber, which meant that he could not work in F1 but that did not preclude him from working with the Lotus sports car team, working with Advanced Design Engineering Systems Solutions AG in Germany.

Key worked with the Jordan F1 team from 1998 and became technical director when the team transformed into MF1 Racing. He remained in the same role when the team became Spyker and then as Force India but in 2010 he left to join Sauber, but his stay there was not what he was looking for and so he decided to move on. It is not clear when the deal to join Scuderia Toro Rosso was done.