Jonathan Wheatley's arrival as Sauber Formula 1 team principal at the start of this month might have passed you by given the lack of fanfare.
He attended last week's Japanese Grand Prix, is here in Bahrain and regards the current triple-header as the ideal opportunity to appraise the team's trackside operations rather than a personal soapbox to shout about his grand plans after taking the helm of F1's backmarker team.
But that's entirely to be expected, for his quiet, softly spoken approach, which he once described as "a veneer", hides a focus and determination much needed at Sauber.
As one of the key architects of Red Bull's rise from also-ran to dominant force after joining as team manager in 2006, later becoming sporting director, Wheatley is arguably the most important recruit Sauber has made during the ongoing process of 'Audification' ahead of becoming the German marque's works team next year.
He's still in the settling-in phase less than two weeks into the job, but speaks warmly of his move to Switzerland - "an amazing country which I've driven through but never stayed in" - and of how he feels "re-energised" by taking up his own command in F1.
"I'm about two weeks into the job," says Wheatley. "I'm trying to use my eye, ears and mouth in proportion and I'm just taking on as much information as I can at the moment. I have a plan and I need to keep referring to that and remember what my views were when I came in. But largely, I'm just encouraged by the energy and excitement in the organisation."
Sauber has endured some difficult times of late, with its car struggles matched by difficulties operationally that made life difficult throughout last season. While some weaknesses were solved, notably the pitstop problems early in the year given Sauber was, by the end of the season, making some very sharp turnarounds, others remain.
Red Bull has continually set new standards for operational excellence over the years, so there's no doubt Wheatley will have noticed some easy wins, but his approach is very much to look and learn before piling in with changes. That will come soon enough, but turning Sauber into a Red Bull operationally will not be the work of a moment.
"It's an interesting question, obviously a question I've been asking myself [since] before I joined the team," says Wheatley when asked by The Race how he judged the current level of Sauber compared to Red Bull. "I arrived a bit later than I would have done normally [at Suzuka], and didn’t really have time to immerse myself.
"I've given myself a target for the first three races. It's a triple-header, and it’s very interesting to see how a team performs over a triple-header; whether there's accident damage, how you recover from that, fatigue - you get a really good picture of how a team operates at the end of that period.
"I'm trying not to jump to any conclusions. I'm using a lot of pen ink at the moment - making notes and trying to put those notes into structure. I'll say I'm encouraged with the openness and willingness to learn that I've experienced in the team so far, and the positive energy. It's a people business. If you don't have that creative energy, you're not going to keep moving forward. That's our plan: just keep building on these little bits of momentum."
For all the comparisons to Red Bull, Wheatley is determined to do things his own way. Having started out as a mechanic with Benetton (now Alpine) before deciding to head down the management path, he arrives at Sauber with a clear idea of the best way to do things. And his expanded role means his influence will stretch further than it did at Red Bull. And he hinted that he would have different ways of doing things to previous boss Christian Horner.
"I've learned from everybody that I've worked with in this business over the last 34 years, so I wouldn't focus particularly on one individual," says Wheatley when asked what he learned from almost 20 years of working under Horner at Red Bull.
"I've been open to learning, open to listening, watching how people react.
"I want to be my own team principal. I want to lead the team, along with Mattia [Binotto, COO, below], in my own way. I've always been pretty sure of my own thoughts and my own views. I have a plan for how we can start this transformation journey and carry the momentum through. It's about the people - the people in the team. That's my focus."
Wheatley will also be aware of the need to build up Sauber not as a Red Bull clone, but an entity in its own right. And that means applying his experience in British teams to a Swiss team that's becoming a German manufactured-owned works outfit. That makes it about meshing cultures as well as simply developing a racing team given the imminent rebranding as Audi.
"It's part of the challenge, part of the fun and excitement," he says when asked by The Race about this task. "What I've found is, at the moment, I'm not seeing any issues in terms of the language - the language of the team, the way people are getting on. There's an openness to learning. I'm going to try to learn German - but I don't want anyone testing me on that in the short term, please!
"It's part of the challenge of the role and we're looking to expand our horizons a little bit. It's a small team that's in the transition phase to becoming a fully-fledged works Formula 1 team. There's myriad projects that we need to get right and one of those is meshing the people together.
"As a team, we need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because change is coming. We have to be at the forefront of that and we need to have a clear road map as to where we're headed - and I believe we're on that roadmap at the moment."
