Motor Authority is reporting that Spanish sport daily Maca is reporting that Ron Dennis has been forced out at McLaren by Mercedes.
If true, it marks the end of an era in Formula One. Ron started as a mechanic at McLaren and rose to become one of the most important figures in motor sports in the past 30 years.
A consummate professional, Ron and his deputy, Martin Whitmarsh, turned a cottage industry into a professional sport. They took F1 out of the garages and into the boardrooms.
BTW, R0n still owns 15% of McLaren, so he won't be on the dole.
UPDATE 2/28/07, 9:03 AM EST: McLaren has denied that Ron is out. Mercedes has said that there's "No change in management" at McLaren. What no one has said is that Ron is still Managing Director at Mclaren. They've left some wiggle room. It could be that Ron's thinking of stepping down, after the SpyGate scandal and the breakup of his 20+ year marriage.
I've never been a Mclaren fan. They always seemed too corporate, too professional. Powered by the insane 1,000 bhp 1.5L Honda turbo, they won 15 of 16 GP's in 1988, leading all but 27 laps through the entire season! It became easy to hate such dominance.
But there can be no denying that Ron is an honorable man, fair and honest. He even turned his own team in over the SpyGate e-mails.
And Ron will always be great because he green-lighted Gordon Murray's spectacular McLaren F1 road car. It will forever be the yardstick by which "supercars" are judged. With an amazing 637 bhp BMW V-12, the F1 was the fastest roadgoing car from 1994 to 2005 at 240 mph. It was finally eclipsed by the 1,000 bhp Bugatti Veyron.
2 comments:
What's up with McLaren exactly? The company seems engulfed in scandal. I'm wondering if it's worth a bow out this year to right their image.
When the spying scandal broke, that wqas bad enough. But when the team's relationship with Alonsso deteriorated, Alonso threatened togo to the FIA with incriminating e-mails that would show the spying was far worse than thought. Ron was forced to rat out the team. This just dragged out the scandal for the whole season and made it even worse.
The ongoing row between Alonso and Hamilton was played out in public, infront of the rabid English motorsports press. They've obviously biased toward Hamilton, and they fanned the flames.
All this made it look like McLaren was in complete disarray, and for a while, they were. Even in the face of all this, they very nearly won the Driver's Championship.
Unfortunately, even if the wanted to, they cannot take a year off.
They have commercial commitments to sponsors and to Mercedes-Benz. They also ar ebud by the Concorde Agreement, and under that it's argably more expensive NOT to race.
LEt's not forget, McLaren is a multinational firm, involved in engineering, product developement, and racing. They do a lot more than just run an F1 team, but all that is predicated on their racing success.
Ron Dennis may be a polished businessman, but don't forget that he started as a mechanic for the team and rose throgh the rankes to become one of the most powerful men in motorsport
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