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A Legend
<One of the most important figures in motorsport history. Simple as that.>
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Ron Dennis(born June 1, 1947) is the executive chairman of McLaren Automotive and 15% owner of the McLaren Group. He was also the team principal of McLaren, the group's Formula One team, until 2009.
Since 1981, Dennis had been the team principal of the McLaren Formula One team, and was instrumental in transforming the outfit into a world championship contender. Constructors' and drivers' world championships were won with Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and Lewis Hamilton. Dennis has a "tense" relationship with, and a reported dislike for, FIA president Max Mosley.
Prior to Dennis's arrival at McLaren in September 1980, the team was going through a particularly uncompetitive stint. The team had last won a grand prix with James Hunt in 1977 and had finished a lowly seventh in the 1980 constructors' title with John Watson and Alain Prost. Even in those early days Dennis recognised the young Frenchman’s potential but was unable to prevent him moving to the Renault team for 1981, a season that saw McLaren once again winning races - with Watson's victory at Silverstone a very popular highlight.
The year 1981 also saw many other teams struggling to duplicate Barnard's revolutionary chassis.
In 1981 Dennis and his business partners bought out the other McLaren shareholders, Teddy Mayer and Tyler Alexander. In 1983 Dennis persuaded then-Williams backer Mansour Ojjeh to become a partner in McLaren International. Ojjeh invested in Porsche-built turbocharged engines which carried the name of his company, Techniques d'Avant Garde (TAG).
Dennis then persuaded the retired Niki Lauda to return to Formula One and at the 1982 South African Grand Prix the double World Champion lined up alongside Watson at the start of the season. By the end of the year both drivers had secured two victories, and 1983 began with more success with Watson's United States Grand Prix win. No more victories followed that year, but Lauda debuted the Porsche-powered MP4-1E interim chassis at that season's Dutch Grand Prix. By the following race, the Italian Grand Prix, both cars were powered by turbocharged engines: McLaren-Ford had become McLaren-TAG. Convinced by his initial investment, Ojjeh became the major investor in McLaren, taking 60 per cent of the shares. By the end of the year Alain Prost, now a race winner at Renault, had been signed to replace Watson; and with the massively experienced Lauda at his side, everything was set for a title challenge in 1984.
In just four years Dennis had turned McLaren from an also-ran team into a front-runner, and in 1984 his work was rewarded with 12 wins from 16 races and both drivers' and constructors' titles. Lauda took the drivers' crown by a half point from his McLaren team-mate Prost, with both drivers scoring more than double the tally of third-placed Elio de Angelis. The following year the situation was reversed and Prost beat Lauda to the drivers' title. McLaren finished eight points ahead of second-placed Ferrari that year, but the pack was closing and in 1986 Dennis's McLaren team lost out to Williams, although the consistent Prost won the drivers' title.
By 1987 it was clear that the TAG engine was no longer competitive in the face of increased manufacturer involvement, and so Dennis approached Honda, who were at the time supplying rivals Williams and Lotus. Williams's unwillingness to accept a Japanese driver (Satoru Nakajima) led Honda to transfer their engine supply to the McLaren team. Dennis further strengthened his team by signing Brazilian Ayrton Senna to partner double champion Prost.
In 1988 McLaren was supremely dominant, even when compared to the superiority it had experienced in 1984, taking 15 of the 16 races and both titles with no real opposition. But it was behind the scenes that Dennis's political manoeuvering was most required. Dennis masterfully kept the drivers focused on racing, yet it could not last. Prost was highly skilled, "the professor": Senna was volatile but brilliant. Their pairing had always been a recipe for conflict.
By mid-1989 it was becoming impossible to pacify the two warring drivers.
Following a fall-out in the aftermath of a broken promise between them at the 1989 San Marino GP, Senna and Prost messily collided in Suzuka. This handed that year's title to the Frenchman. Subsequently, Prost left the team for Ferrari and was replaced by Gerhard Berger for the following season.
At the start of the 1990s McLaren continued to dominate the sport with Ayrton Senna taking back-to-back titles in 1990 and 1991. McLaren signed the promising newcomer Mika Häkkinen as a test driver at the end of 1992, but by 1992 Williams was once more in the ascendancy. McLaren was not to win another title for seven long years. Instead, with the loss of Honda power in 1993, Dennis was left haggling with Ford and Ford's works team Benetton for a supply of competitive engines. A disappointing partnership with Peugeot in 1994 failed to yield the expected results and left Dennis searching to find a fourth engine partner in as many years. He succeeded: in October 1994 he agreed terms with Mercedes to supply engines from 1995 onwards, an association that endures to this day.
The first couple of seasons of the McLaren-Mercedes relationship were difficult, with the inevitable teething troubles that always come with a new engine, indifferent chassis, and the odd choice of a driver for 1995 in the ageing Nigel Mansell. Mansell did not even fit the car at the start of 1995 (Mark Blundell deputised) and even when a revised chassis was produced Mansell's performances were not successful. Mika Häkkinen gradually assumed leadership of the team but suffered severe head injuries in a crash at the end of the 1995 season, from which he fortunately made a complete recovery.
By the mid-1990s Dennis was once more guiding his team towards domination of the sport, and in 1996 he approached Williams's star designer Adrian Newey to become technical director of McLaren. Newey agreed and in 1998 McLaren once more took both the drivers' and the constructors' titles with Mika Häkkinen. A second drivers' title followed in 1999, but Ferrari took constructors' glory, a sign of things to come in the next five years.
In 2000 Dennis was made a Commander of the British Empire.
In 2001 Dennis was faced with a crisis amongst his staff when Jaguar boss Bobby Rahal attempted to lure Newey from McLaren. Details of how Dennis convinced Newey to stay have remained extremely vague, but rumours in the specialist motor racing press suggested a deal allowing the designer to work on racing yachts; this never happened in the end, however. In the same year, team leader Mika Häkkinen announced that he was to leave the sport. Faced with the loss of his double world champion star driver, Dennis signed another Finn, Kimi Räikkönen, from under the nose of Ferrari boss Jean Todt, who had made little secret of his interest in the driver.
In 2005 Dennis remained at the top of the sport following a poor year in 2004.
Despite producing their strongest performance for several years and winning more grands prix than any of their rivals, McLaren were narrowly beaten in both championships by the Renault F1 team. A further blow was the announcement that Adrian Newey was to join Red Bull Racing from the start of 2006.
However, in December 2005 McLaren announced a title sponsorship deal with Vodafone (estimated to be worth Ł500 million) and the signing of World Champion Fernando Alonso, both contracts to commence in 2007. In the interim McLaren had a difficult 2006 season, failing to win a race for the first time since the 1996 season. Halfway through the 2006 season, McLaren gave up on perfecting their current car and the team focused on the 2007 MP4-22 car. The start of the 2007 season saw McLaren in top condition, with only Ferrari as a challenger for the world championships. Very quickly into the season the McLarens became the cars to beat, with both drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, in the race for the drivers' championship. However, the team suffered throughout the season for the in-fighting between Alonso and Hamilton, much like the fights in the same team between Senna and Prost.
Meanwhile, Dennis was seen to be personally under strain during the espionage controversy that saw McLaren's chief designer Mike Coughlan accused of obtaining confidential Ferrari technical data from Ferrari's chief engineer Nigel Stepney. In September, McLaren were found to be in breach of Article 151c of the FIA International Sporting Code - an article that describes acting "against the interests of motor sport generally".
The FIA World Motor Sport Council stripped the team of their 2007 constructors' points and handed out a US$100 million fine. Dennis said that he was vindicated personally; indeed, he claimed to have been so keen to cooperate with the investigation and protect his own and McLaren's fundamental reputation for integrity, that he personally informed the FIA of new evidence which was ultimately used to convict the team. However, FIA President Max Mosley who Dennis telephoned about the issue, has said that Dennis contacted him only to deny that any further evidence existed against his team. Although Mosley says that he accepted Dennis's word at the time, the subsequent receipt of information that had been uncovered by the Italian police prompted the FIA to bring the team before the World Motorsport Council once again. Mosley first made this public at a meeting with the press in the paddock at Spa, two days after the final verdict against the team. Mosley went on to say that the penalty imposed upon the team was modest and that the FIA would perhaps be accused in future of doing too little rather than too much to punish the team and prevent cheating in the sport. Later in London Mosley raised the issue of Dennis’s integrity even more directly. In an interview published in The Guardian newspaper he observed, among other things, that it was highly improbable that Dennis had not known about the illicit conduct of his own team.
In the Alonso vs. Hamilton conflict, Dennis always advocated treating his two drivers equally. However, after the Chinese Grand Prix, he said "We weren't racing Kimi, we were basically racing Fernando." The Times said his comments "made a nonsense of his claims to be treating his drivers equitably in the World Championship run-in" but the team's insistence on parity until the very final race in Brazil underlined Dennis's core philosophy even if it ultimately lost the team the world championship.
A petition has been established on the British Government's Downing Street Website to ask her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to grant a knighthood to Ron Dennis for his services to motor sport, business and technology.
It was announced on January 16, 2009 that Ron Dennis would be stepping down as McLaren's team principal on March 1, to be replaced by Martin Whitmarsh.
On April 16, 2009 Dennis handed over complete control of the McLaren F1 team to Martin Whitmarsh, citing a desire to pursue new challenges, especially focusing on the McLaren road car.
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<Thank you for all these years! Thank you for all the great memories and the wonderful experiences in Formula One which you made possible! Thank you for Ayrton, thank you for Lewis! Thank you for Silver Arrows! Thank you sooo much!>
All the Best for the Future!
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