Monisha Kaltenborn has kept a low profile since she fell out with the new owner of Sauber last summer, but she has not lost her passion for the sport and has just announced plans to run her own Formula 4 team in 2018. To be called KDC Racing, it is a 50-50 partnership with a Franco-Monegasque businesswoman called Emily di Comberti. The Kaltenborn Di Comberti team will field two cars in the German and Italian Formula 4 Championships, working from a base at Granollers, close to the Circuit de Catalunya, near Barcelona. The team will race with a Swiss licence. KDC Racing will announce its drivers shortly, but it is clear that this is an organisation with ambitions to move up the racing ladder in the future… Kaltenborn says that she is still open to working in F1 if anyone wants her experience in the sport, which is considerable.
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joeblogsf1 
Best of luck to Kaltenborn, she put shine to the Saubers, she’s the best thing to happen in F4 since Senna Fielding lit the Formula up in Britain.
Monisha plans to hire three pay drivers for her two car team.
Glad to see both Monisha and Martin on the rise again
Glad to hear it, glad you reported it. It is a shame she is still not with Sauber.
Van der Garde is available (!)
Ooh you are naughty!
So is Pastor Maldonado, I expect.
this is good news! here’s hoping they’re in f3 and f2 soon. this should put them in a good position to enter f1 if liberty are able to -live up to their name and- create a structure that enables new teams to enter.
i’m trusting this is one of their goals once they can restructure payment etc. is this all naive, wishful thinking?
Good news. I’d wonder what had become of her. Having the likes of her around the sport seems much more consequential than banning grid girls, in terms of putting forward opportunities for women.
Just as some men move forward by using muscles or looks, rather than brains or knowledge (must use whatever gifts nature gave you), so too should the breadth of opportunities be there for women. IMHO, which is not worth much!
That is certainly happening in F1. In recent years, Merc and Red Bull have both had women staff members representing the team on a podium. In both cases the women were on the engineering staff. There’s also Ruth Buscombe who was the strategist who made smart calls to get Haas points in their first race and is now chief strategist for Sauber. Increasingly it doesn’t matter who you are, it matters that you can do the job.
It’s a real shame she got ousted and, yes, she has a lot of experience that others could be wise to tap into…
Williams could do worse than replacing Claire with Monisha..
Here here….
After the hire three drivers trick. I wouldn’t trust her to run a bath let alone an F4 team.
That just shows you don’t understand what happened.
Would you be able to enlighten us more then Joe, since as stated above is exactly how I see the events of back then…?
Sauber decided not to put forward their side of the story. All you got was VdGardés story.
I assume it was a desperation move.
and you know what assume makes..
Sauber was supposed to run Bianchi for 2015 paid for by Ferrari. However, Bianchi was fatally injured at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, which left Sauber seriously underfunded. They turned to Felipe Nasr, who brought funding from a Brazilian bank and Marcus Ericsson leaving Van De Garde and Sutil out in the cold.
I wish her well. It’s good for the sport and quite obviously Peter Sauber had much time for her but please no repeat of that stupid situation in Australia that severely damaged her image and reputation.
Williams should have signed her up for her driver hiring experience.
They seemed to struggle just recently it seemed……
Good to see her back.
Joe, just about to sign up for next season :)!
In a nut shell, what the heck happened in OZ with the 3 drivers in 2 Saubers cars situation? Cheers!
It’s not exactly running Lamborghini like Domenicali.
Very little evidence of her doing anything worthwhile in F1 and looked like she was well out of her depth a lot of the time.
Joe will reply that this shows how little I know (true) but can anyone show what she achieved or explain why PS gave her that role? It did not end well and never looked like it would while she was Team Principal.
She did a very good job in difficult circumstances and was way smarter than most of the others. The fact that Sauber still exists is your evidence. I see it being gobbled up by Alfa Romeo shortly.
Changed your tune already? “just a sponsorship deal”
No. It is a sponship deal now. But I see a bad year followed by a cheap takeover. I’m sure you can understand the difference.
In the name of selling Alfa Romeos, or in the name of extra ammunition/threats when this Ferrari historic payment gets cut?
Both
Just a guess then. We’ll see.
Black and white are rare in racing. There is a lot of grey. If you’ve been around a bit in the sport you know this
Much like life but with a few more curved balls thrown in !
Lots of oil smoke, eh?
I think the troll has been fed enough now, Joe..
Use of the corporate funds from one independent, publicly listed corporation, for the benefit of a different, independent, publicly listed corporation. Is this transaction fully arms-length? Are there any conflicts of interest hiding in plain sight?
I’m sure one would buy from the other. Quite normal. It’s called trade.
hats off to Monisha for sure! no problem there. But Joe what leads You to believe that AR would be able/willing to handle the F1 team? Well, as long as Mr. Marchionne keeps it under FCA it may be fine but if he sells/floats AR off ? or merges it with Maseratti and still sells/floats both? Will it become COURTF1? – alas Chinese One United Racing Team ?
Any possibility of this team having an all female driver line up as a point of difference? Would fit in well with motorsport wanting to appear more friendly to women.
One day it will happen but positive discrimination like that does nothing good for women and is unlikely to bring in sponsorship at that level.
All female driver lineup? Only if they are competitive and committed to the sport.
As new owners their first obligation is survival and creating a winning atmosphere.
Does she think 4 stands for the amount of drivers she can sign? Yeah I know you say Sauber never put their side of the story across, well that’s not strictly true, they had their day in court and lost, and being a former lawyer and still lose says it all. She may of saved Sauber, but she did pull some seriously shady stunts.
Believe what you like. I’m telling you that you are wrong but you know best. Fine.
Are you saying the courts were wrong? If Sauber were in the right, they wouldn’t of lost in court and told their story to a journalist whom isn’t allowed to share their story, could it be even worse than what we know? If you’re in the right, you prove it, win in court and don’t suffer a public humiliation. I think history will remember her poorly, but time will tell. I know you’re close to the Sauber team and maybe that’s why you defend the indefensible when all evidence points to her being in the wrong, but the admirable quality on your part.
I think she’ll be successful at what ever she does and she’s not afraid to overstep the mark, Flávio MKii.
No, what you are saying is that you know best because you read something on the Internet and think that this makes it right. And that I have a warped view because it doesn’t fit with what you think you know.
Ok. But why would that be the case? Am I stupid? Am I corrupt? Could it perhaps be I know things that you do not know – but I cannot tell you because sometimes one cannot tell the whole story? I believe that Sauber behaved correctly in the circumstances, but did not want to tell their story in public. Monisha is anything but stupid. She is a lawyer. So could it be that she took a bullet for the team? I am trying to help you understand. You don’t wish to accept what I am telling you. Fair enough. One can lead a horse to water… but can not make it drink. So, let’s try it another way: Why, if VdG was right, did his F1 career end there and then? No team would touch him with a barge pole after that.
In these enlightened times, I’m hoping VdG isn’t in F1 now because he’s not good enough rather than because he might have exposed poor behaviour in the Auzzie courts.
There is a fairly detailed list of Van der Garde’s activities vis a vis Sauber on Wiki. I have no idea of the accuracy of the information, but it looks detailed enough to be credible.
I must say that as a fan I admire Joe’s willingness to indicate that there is more to the story than what VdG disclosed to the media and in Court. Without any proof to the contrary I could never attribute the 14/15 contract debacle to MK but at the very least she received a professional hospital pass the likes of which few reputations could recover. I must say VdG was incredibly candid to the media that his F1 career was over soon after the incident, but never attributed that to a damaged reputation within the paddock. Was it not possible that his backers (MacGregor) were so disillusioned with the way they’d been treated that they would not fund VdG in F1 in the future and knowing that, VdG knew he’d never get a seat? Cheers for the story Joe.
No, that is not the story.
Hello,
The consortium behind VdG believed they could force a secret hostile takeover of Sauber when they were in the doldrums halfway through 2015 but they were found out. After that Giedo was never going to race for the team, come what may. Sauber did not want the precise details of the takeover become known publically during the legal proccedings so they chose to remain silent to take short term unhappiness vs. long term surivival. In the end Bernie helped them out and VdG fizzled out after his longtime sponsor went bankrupt and if it wasn’t for Racing Team Holland he still would not have a drive. Giedo is a very pleasant young man who can drive fast but what happened happened and trying to force things after that was never going to keep him in F1…
I only heard the story once shortly after team VdG was paid off but the source was quite credible and it certainly explains Sauber’s defence tactics during those tumultuous months…
Love you blog Joe!
So the team was in dire straits and in danger of a hostile takeover, so she pulled a Flavio to save the team, and it all got bit shady, hence Sutil and Giedo got a massive payout and Sauber couldn’t defend themselves in court or in the press, makes sense. Mission accomplished, team saved and Sauber are still Sauber for that moment in time. Sutil is the one I feel sorry for, he nor his backers never wronged the team, but still got screwed out of a drive.
Once again your story shows that you don’t know much
Joe, I’m really not picking a fight with you, you’re going with the faith v science argument, and you’re asking everyone to have faith in you, when all the facts available to us suggest otherwise. If Jerry is correct, then that still makes my summary in the bad, park.
I’m just telling you what I can tell you. If you don’t want to accept it then that’s fine. But there is ni point in saying it is wrong over and over because my view will not change, unless you can show me something that makes me believe otherwise. The VdG side is all in the public domain. The Sauber side is not.