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McLaren say Red Bull's demands for Key are too much

13:01, 02 Sep 2018

byBobby Vincent

Zak Brown reveals that James Key is unlikely to move to McLaren this season because Red Bull are demanding too much for Key to be released early.

In July, it was announced by McLaren that Key would be joining from Red Bull, but Red Bull were angered by this as they wanted him to see out the rest of his contract at their junior side Toro Rosso.

McLaren wanted to have Key's services a bit earlier than what they paid for, but Red Bull's demands have turned out to be "too much" according to McLaren's boss Brown.

"We're in no dialogue with them," Brown told Motorsport.com. "They have named their terms. I'm not interested in the terms that they have put forward."

Brown has admitted that he was unsure when Key would be able to start his new job in Woking.

"We have signed a contract with James, so he will be joining McLaren as technical director. We're still working through the timing of that. I think it's highly unlikely that he will join us next season - and we don't have a specific start date yet."

Brown also confirmed that his team are in negotiations with former McLaren and Ferrari man Pat Fry, in a bid to make Fry return to McLaren.

"We are talking to a variety of people to strengthen our technical department. We've hired some people internally, that we've not really spoken about, and we'll have some other people joining the team that we'll speak about in due course."