Ron Dennis steps down from McLaren
Ron 'required to relinquish' Chief Executive and Chairman roles at Technology Group; remains on the board

While the first details are only now emerging, it sounds far from an amicable split. The BBC was reporting discontent at Dennis's "autocratic" style, with a falling out between him and Mansour Ojjeh - who also owns 25 per cent of the McLaren Group - placing the Frenchman on the side of the Bahraini Mumtalakat investment fund, which owns the other 50 per cent. Certainly Dennis's statement leaves little doubt as to his opinion: "I am disappointed that the representatives of TAG and Mumtalakat, the other main shareholders in McLaren, have forced through this decision to place me on gardening leave, despite the strong warnings from the rest of the management team about the potential consequences of their actions on the business."
On the issues around his management style, Dennis said that this justification was "spurious". He continued by saying "my management style is the same as it has always been and is one that has enabled McLaren to become an automotive and technology group that has won 20 Formula One world championships." Of course the counter argument to that would now be that the last of those world championships was in 2008, a long time in F1 terms. He went on to say that "it has become clear to me through this process that neither TAG nor Mumtalakat share my vision for McLaren", which sounds like a very awkward stalemate.
Plainly there's a lot more to be established here - note he will remain on the board for both the Technology Group and Automotive - but it sounds like a very significant change is coming at McLaren .As for Ron Dennis, his statement concluded by saying that "I intend to launch a new technology investment fund once my contractual commitments with McLaren expire." Expect more details soon.
McLaren could end up with two rookie drivers next season at this rate as Alonso is making his feelings quite plain, even if he isn't saying anything to the media.
Jenson I expect is going to make up for lost time away from Formula One and will get plenty of offers to race in different series or even present.
Ferrari toe a very narrow line in some ways, these days they're largely a fashion brand for many people, but survive as a legitimate purveyor of some of the finest machinery in the world because they continue to pump out absolutely incredible cars despite that not really being a "growth" area for them. I certainly hope McLaren doesn't change much, but without someone like Ron at the helm, I worry that it will.
They they graciously let a tiny team, the remains of the disasterous Honda team and sure-fire back markers "Brawn" use their engines, who then went onto win the WDC, then took over as Mercedes factory team and Mclaren had to be a customer of their engines.
Fast forward to accepting a Honda engine (would love to know what the problems really are: political? Honda management?? Dennis???) and struggling to qualify sometimes. The results do not match the budget. Shame. Williams have never really recovered from their domiant position in the 90s, when Renault left
Couldn't have seen it happening to Enzo or Colin Chapman, despite , for example, the 73 season (Ferrari )and 76 season (Lotus ) . And it does seem glib to condemn the man because, essentially , Honda's engine hasn't been great.
Might be rubbish, but McLarens fortunes could go either way in this instance. Who can tell? Major sponsor effectively, or, major drain on resources? I can't see Apple share holders tollerating the destruction of a major Marque like McLaren persoanlly.
Maybe it's a fear of the unknown for Ron. Or maybe I'm well off the mark. Lol
Might be rubbish, but McLarens fortunes could go either way in this instance. Who can tell? Major sponsor effectively, or, major drain on resources? I can't see Apple share holders tollerating the destruction of a major Marque like McLaren persoanlly.
Maybe it's a fear of the unknown for Ron. Or maybe I'm well off the mark. Lol
It maybe that the board members don't share this thought and use the flagging F1 presence as justifiable reasoning for the shove.
....Or that they do see the potential in a apple deal and its actually Ron that doesn't want it. Wanting to keep the brand pure race car.
Either way, Time will tell I guess.
Total guess work by the way, for all I know they fell out over who had the better parking space at the factory.
Autonomous cars will be a dream for years to come. The interesting stuff is in power trains for now and McLaren don't need Apple to do that.
Hard to know the answer to that given the resources at his disposal. But I will say this; he got these two outcomes, and still managed to get a team to the grid, and attract some heavy hitting drivers, who wouldn't have come, presumably, if they didn't believe in the team. Alonso was at Ferrari with big money being thrown at him. If he was only interested in money, he could have stayed put, so there must have been more going on, and his decision to jump into a team that had previously been "difficult", must have been overcome by some compelling arguments.
I do feel sad about him leaving, and wish there was a way for him to continue.
Maybe this is a silly question, but does anyone know why McLaren didn't build their own engines (besides the cost)? They could have got engines from Ricardo, and done some kind of technology transfer into their own road cars, so might have been able to justify some of the expense and amortise it in a way that could justify that route, but really curious if anyone knows the real details.
However this coup seems a little undignified and not befitting of Ron's contributions and acheivements with the team.
Frustratingly McLaren will enjoy a much better season next year, and I will cringe when I hear the F1 team's new front man boasting that he has 'turned the team around'...
No doubt he will pop up somewhere else. It will be interesting to see where.
He was probably spot on about this, but he went with Honda too early, and they were hopelessly under-prepared and nowhere near ready to compete. Ultimately, this mistake has cost him his job, and it's sad to see one of the founding fathers of F1 leave the sport in such circumstances.
At a personal level he must be absolutely gutted to have his business (because really, it isn't anyone else's) taken away from him like this.
As to knifing Whitmarsh, yes he did, but Whitmarsh failed absolutely & was, at the end of the day, an employee. McLaren Automotive is going really well & the F1 team is clearly making progress. If this had anything to do with his performance as a manager they would wait till it becomes clear how good next year's car will be.
This has nothing to do with his performance.
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