Ron Dennis

I was surprised to see there wasn't already a thread about this most famous of (former) team principals.

Much has been said about Ron Dennis and his unique personality and approach, mostly taken with a pinch of salt and slight chuckle.
Well perhaps this article, by a former McLaren employee, will dispel some myths while simultaneously reinforcing others: http://f1elvis.com/2012/11/07/mr-ron-dennis-cbe/

(Alternative link: http://www.pitlanemagazine.com/magazine/?p=435)

Love him or loathe him, Dennis' tenure at McLaren will be remembered for a long time to come and it is inevitable that current and future team principals will be compared to him.
 
A common theme in the world of music. To quote the words of Neil Young (as Kurt Cobain did in his suicide note)

"...its better to burn out than to fade away"

I'm afraid father time gets the best of all of us and whilst Ayrton will be forever young we are forever denied the chance to see what else he could of acheived outside F1. F1 is not the be all and end all in this world. Something Ron should think about once in a while.
 
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In a splendid article in last months motorsport magazine investigating how F1 got itself into the financial situation it is in, the point the finger squarly at all the teams who spend the money they have instead of spending the money on what they need. McLaren re-defined what it meant to be a team in F1 in the mid 80's with huge ammounts of financial backing and sponsorship. The article pointed out that no team needs a super technology centre such as McLarens but because they have the money they will build one. This is fine while money keeps pouring into the sport but if the tap gets turned off they have an issue. The only reason Mercedes for example, spend millions and millions on F1 is because they have millions and millions to spend. Becuase of the current financial situation in the world, as the article put it, F1 in the last set of governance and financial negotiations, turned to feeding off itself to sustain the sport. The gaps in funding were made up by removing the money from the smaller teams and making sure it stayed that way by only allowing 6 teams to vote on any changes. You only have to look at the recent Premiership football TV deal where before any finisihing position and prize money is taken into account, 50 percent of the money is divided equally between all of the teams. The remaining money is divided into two pots, the first is distributed by finishing position and the second by how many times you appear on TV so the more popular clubs will get a little more from that. F1 is nowhere near as fair as this. It would be a different story if McLaren had less money to play with.
 
Many years ago Professor Cyril Northcote Parkinson wrote a book about Parkinson's Law. This states that work expands to fill the time available, in other words if there is an amount of work to do then how quickly it is done depends on the time there is to do it in. In one chapter he deals with companies who build expensive headquarters buildings; he says that it is a sign of decline, they are becoming more an image than a working entity.

Compare McLaren before and after building their new technology centre; I think the professor may have a point.
 
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