By Andrew Cutler
October 1 2012

Now that he's had a couple of weeks to settle in as Technical Director, James Key is talking to journalists about what he's found at Scuderia Toro Rosso and how he hopes to have an impact there. While he likes the spirit that runs through the squad from Faenza, he feels that too much energy and effort is wasted owing to an inefficient 'flow' between departments.  

"It's early days obviously, but I think one of the big strengths I noticed very quickly in the team is the enthusiasm everyone has and the ambition to make it succeed," the Englishman told reportes at the Spanish GP. "Everyone is desperate for it to work, there's a real passion there, as you can imagine, being Italian in the team's origin.

"So, the strength, I think, is the will and the ambition of everyone. On the weakness side, I think it's just still a team that's growing. There's no lack of effort from anyone, it just needs to be given direction. There's certainly some work to do on the aero side - and mechanical, for that matter - which is very clear, from a technical point of view. There's some pretty clear steps. Some of it takes time, some of it's fairly obvious for next year."

When asked what impact he can yet have on the remainder of the 2012 season, Key admitted that, short of minor design 'tweaks' to the usual suspension/aero bits, there was little that he could do at this point.

As to STR's 2013 car, which is already well along in the design drawings, he remarked; "I'd say there's probably 40 per cent of the car still to go, so certainly we can work on that. But I have to say a lot of very sensible decisions have already been made for next year's car, exactly what I would have done, which is good. We're all aligned in our direction and we'll do everything we can in between now and Melbourne."