F1 team bosses have their own light-bulb moment

LONDON : The late McLaren boss Teddy Mayer liked to compare Formula One drivers to interchangeable light-bulbs, declaring "you plug them in and they do the job", and nowadays the same might be said for team principals.

The season kicks off in Bahrain next week with four of the 10 teams under new management since the end of the last campaign.

Aston Martin's Mike Krack, who was appointed in January last year, is now the fifth longest-serving principal in the paddock after taking charge a matter of days before Otmar Szafnauer arrived at Alpine.

Ferrari, presided over by founder Enzo for more than 40 years until his death in 1988, have Frederic Vasseur freshly installed at Maranello as their fifth principal in under a decade.

The Frenchman is on his third different team, after stints at Sauber and Renault.

Andreas Seidl has moved from McLaren to replace Vasseur at Sauber, the Swiss company which runs the Alfa Romeo team, with Alessandro Alunni Bravo effectively the acting principal reporting to him.

Former Ferrari engineer Andrea Stella has taken the principal role at McLaren in an internal promotion while James Vowles completed the merry-go-round by moving from a strategy role at Mercedes to boss of Williams.

"I am counting the days," joked Krack, a former Sauber engineer and BMW Motorsport boss, at the launch of the team's new car when his 'longevity' was mentioned.

"I was surprised about how these things went, especially in that very short period of time," he added of the winter reshuffle.

"It shows also that the role of the team principal is maybe sometimes also a bit over-rated because if you can change it so quickly and there is no big impact, it tells also something.

"On the other hand, I think consistency and stability is