Former Force India boss Colin Kolles is tipped to succeed the ousted Monisha Kaltenborn at the top of the Swiss team Sauber.
On Wednesday, amid reports of a dispute about Sauber's current drivers, it emerged that Formula 1's first female chief Kaltenborn is leaving the Hinwil team immediately.
Pascal Picci, the new Sauber owner following last year's rescue buyout, confirmed that the Indian-Austrian is leaving "due to diverging views of the future of the company".
"Her successor will be announced shortly," a team statement added.
Picci also said that media reports in Der Spiegel and elsewhere that he and Kaltenborn disagreed over the preferential treatment of Swedish driver Marcus Ericsson are "patently untrue".
According to sources, Kaltenborn has not made the trip to Baku this week.
"Technical director Jorg Zander and I were commissioned by the owner of the team to take over operational management here in Azerbaijan," team manager Beat Zehnder told Swiss newspaper Blick.
Yet Bild said that solution is "temporary".
"Colin Kolles is the successor," the German newspaper claimed.
Kolles, an ally of Bernie Ecclestone and also reportedly close to the Ericsson-linked Sauber backer Tetra Laval, ran the Jordan, Force India and HRT teams in the past.
More recently, he has headed his own Le Mans team.
