Ron Dennis

Ron Dennis at the 2000 Monaco Grand Prix

Ron Dennis CBE (born June 1, 1947) is the chairman, CEO and 15% owner of the McLaren Group. He is also the team principal of the McLaren Formula One team.

Since the early 1980s Dennis has been the principal of the McLaren Formula One team attending races and supervising the teams operations and strategy from the pit wall. Dennis is widely believed to have a strong dislike for FIA president Max Mosleyand [fernando Alondo]].

He is placed at number 648 in the Sunday Times Rich List 2006 with a fortune of £90 million.

Early life

Born and raised in Woking, England, Dennis left school at sixteen and began working as an apprentice mechanic for the Thomson & Taylor garage at Weybridge (near the disused Brooklands circuit). When that garage became a subsidiary of the Chipstead Motor Group, Dennis transferred to another arm of the business, the Cooper Car Company which manufactured racing cars.

In 1966, aged 19, Dennis became a mechanic for the Cooper Formula One team where the lead driver was Jochen Rindt. In 1968 Rindt moved to Brabham and took Dennis with him. For the 1969 season Rindt moved to Lotus; however, Dennis remained and became chief mechanic for Jack Brabham. Most racing mechanics were in their 30s or beyond; Dennis was almost unique in being a decade or more younger than most of his colleagues.

When Jack Brabham chose retirement in 1971 Dennis and fellow mechanic Neil Trundle decided to start their own team. In 1971 Rondel Racing was founded in his native Woking. By the mid-1970s the team was enjoying moderate success in Formula Two (and Dennis was the only man to whom Ron Tauranac ever sold cars on credit). Rondel aspired to being a little more than a customer team, and Dennis managed to find a backer (Motul) to fund a Rondel F2 car; the car took its name. For 1974 a Ray Jessop-designed F1 car was planned, but the energy crisis affected racing severely and the car was completed by other hands and raced as the Token and later the Safir.

Dennis regrouped, forming a Marlboro-backed F2 team for two modestly-talented but well-sponsored drivers from Ecuador. Little was achieved. In 1975 Dennis founded the Project Three team and his cars once again became race winners. In the late 1970s Dennis founded Project Four. This team went on to success in Formula 2 and Formula 3, taking the title in 1979 and 1980 with Philip Morris (Marlboro) backing. Project Four also participated in the build programme for BMW M1 racing cars, and Dennis aspired to return to Formula One, hiring designer John Barnard to plan a new car.

In 1980 due to poor performance by McLaren John Hogan, a Philip Morris executive, forced McLaren chairman Teddy Mayer to accept a merger with Dennis' Project Four. This was in effect a reverse takeover with the Formula One constructor becoming McLaren International. This ultimately placed the thirty-four year old in full control of the merged teams. An important move by Dennis was the hiring of designer John Barnard who began work on the team's revolutionary new carbon fibre composite chassis, the MP4/1.

Building McLaren

In 1980 the team failed to win a single Grand Prix, finishing a lowly seventh in the 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 in 1981, a season which saw McLaren once more winning races with Watson's victory at Silverstone. 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, 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 persuaded the retired Niki Lauda to return to F1 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 wins followed that year, but by the Italian Grand Prix in September Ojjeh's engines were ready and McLaren-Ford gave way to McLaren-TAG. Convinced by his initial investment Ojjeh became the major investor in McLaren, taking 70% 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 title by a half point from his McLaren teammate 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 driver's title. McLaren finishing 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 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 rival Williams. Unnerved by a recent road-car accident to team principal Frank Williams, and Williams's unwillingness to accept a Japanese driver, Honda transferred their supply to the McLaren team. Dennis further strengthened the team by signing Brazilian Ayrton Senna to partner double champion Prost.

In 1988 McLaren was dominant, even in comparison to 1984, taking 15 of the 16 races and both titles with no opposition, but it was behind the scenes that Dennis's political manoeuvering was most required. Partnering Prost with the volatile but brilliant Senna, arguably two of the all-time greats, had always been a recipe for conflict, and Dennis masterfully kept both drivers focused on racing, but it could not last.

By mid-1989 it was clear that even Dennis was powerless to control the two warring drivers, and after a controversial collision at the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix, which handed the title over to Prost, the Frenchman left the team for Ferrari and was replaced by Gerhard Berger for the following season.

The 1990s

Dennis at the 1991 United States Grand Prix at the Phoenix street circuit.

At the start of the 1990s McLaren continued to dominate the sport with Ayrton Senna taking back-to-back titles in 1990 and 1991 and signing promising new-comer Mika Häkkinen as 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 years. Instead, with the loss of Honda power in 1993, Dennis was left haggling with Ford and works partner Benetton for a supply of competitive engines. A disastrous partnership with Peugeot in 1994 left Dennis struggling to find a fourth engine partner in four years, but for 1995 he agreed terms with Mercedes, an association which endures to this day. The first couple of seasons of the Mercedes relationship were difficult, with the inevitable teething troubles that come of a new engine, indifferent chassis, and the odd choice of a driver for 1995 in 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 building his team towards domination of the sport and in 1996 he approached Williams star designer Adrian Newey to become technical director of McLaren. Newey agreed and in 1998 McLaren once more took driver's and constructor's titles with Mika Häkkinen. A second driver's title followed in 1999, but Ferrari took constructor's glory, a sign of things to come in the next five years.

The 2000s

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 press suggested a deal allowing the designer to work on racing yachts. 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 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, 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 £800 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 1996 season. Halfway through the 2006 season, McLaren gave up on perfecting their current car and the team focused on the 2007 car. The start of the 2007 season saw McLaren in top condition, with only Ferrari as the strongest 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 driver 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 accused of obtaining and using confidential Ferrari technical data contrary to FIA regulations. In September, McLaren were found guilty by the FIA court and stripped of their constructors' points and handed a $100 million fine. While the evidence of McLaren indeed having such data was clear, its value to and use by McLaren was legally questionable. Similarly, Dennis was vindicated personally; indeed, so keen was he 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.

In Alonso vs. Hamilton conflict, Dennis has always said to help 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."

A petition has been established on the British Goverment'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.

"Ronspeak"

"Ronspeak" is the term coined for the style of speech used by Dennis in Formula One racing. It has become a well-used phrase in the F1 paddock to describe sentences of unneeded complexity. Dennis is renowned for his excessively businesslike and cautious answers to tough questions from F1 journalists. It started circa 1980, when sponsorship started to play a more prominent role in the sport.

However while acknowledging that the term has been used to criticise Dennis, F1 Racing editor Matt Bishop argues that "Ronspeak" is not a vice; rather informative and accurate. Dennis, in describing Fernando Alonso's contribution to the McLaren team's development, said his experience and ability "[prevented] an F1 team from going down [time wasting] technical cul-de-sacs - and as a result, car-developmental progress becomes more linear." Bishop describes this as a prime example of Ronspeak, however he also calls it "logical, informative and insightful. [but also] careful... in that what it doesn't do is compare Alonso's exceptional all-round ability with that of his predecessors."

Personal Life

Ron Dennis is married to Lisa Dennis, and has three children. Lisa Dennis was the author of a series of illustrated children's books during the 1990's; they followed the Formula One adventures of main characters "Mac" and "Lauren".