Bring on the women: Sauber names Kaltenborn Managing Director

News, perhaps, that mainly the female fans of Formula1 will find wonderful and exciting came from Sauber F1 on Friday, in that Monisha Kaltenborn has been named the first woman Managing Director of a Formula1 team.  According to ITV, the Austrian will manage the day-to-day management of the team at the factory instead of owner and former team manager Peter Sauber.  She was the head of legal affairs and “has been on the board of management since 2001.”

This appointment is one of many announced Friday in a re-structuring of the team for the 2010 season.  Sauber himself has returned to his position of team principal and is the president of the board of directors.  Sauber’s son Alex will be in charge of the team’s marketing after two years working in a similar position in Swiss football (soccer) and Willy Rampf will remain technical director.  Returning to the team as finance director is Urs Jampen, and Jürg Flach has quite the long title as “director of operations with overall responsibility for production.”

This restructuring truly marks the end of BMW’s involvement with Sauber’s team, as many of these roles were filled by staff from Munich.  The new appointments are generally former team members returning to their old positions.  Still, the appointment of Kaltenborn is a step forward in the male-dominated world of F1.  There have long been arguments against too much female participation in F1 (particularly as racing drivers) except as pretty girls holding umbrellas, and this appointment of a previously involved and apparently more-than-competent woman shows great progress.  Particularly wonderful is the lack of stir it has caused in the media.  The fact that the very idea is not a shock, nor has it been greeted with amazement, makes the idea the precise kind of common occurrence it should be.