Following the demotion of Ron Dennis as the company's chief, McLaren Technology Group has announced that Zak Brown has accepted the position of Executive Director. The former McLaren F1 driver is set to start work in December.
This thread/ BBC radio.adrianjordan wrote:Does anyone have a link to the PP rumours or is it something which has originated within this very thread?
It was discussed on BBC Radio FP2 coverage as an aside to RDs issues. The commentators, Jack Nicholls and Mark Gallagher (the ex Cosworth boss) seemed surprised that they'd both heard the rumour independant of each other.adrianjordan wrote:Does anyone have a link to the PP rumours or is it something which has originated within this very thread?
Ron Dennis's 35-year tenure as the boss of McLaren is coming to an end.
The 69-year-old will be told by fellow shareholders on Tuesday that he must give up his position as chairman and chief executive of the McLaren Group.
He does not want to step down and failed in a High Court bid last week to prevent McLaren putting him on 'gardening leave' - but is likely to be left with no choice.
The exact nature of his departure is to be decided in talks with shareholders.
Dennis owns 25% of McLaren Group. Bahrain's Mumtalakat investment fund owns 50% and the remaining 25% is held by Dennis's long-time business partner Mansour Ojjeh, a Saudi-born Frenchman.
Dennis and Ojjeh fell out some years ago and the 64-year-old has sided with the Bahrainis in trying to remove his former friend.
It is felt that Dennis' autocratic style is ill-fitted to growing McLaren in the future.
Couldn't agree more. I used to love the Ronisms of old but he rarely appears in the coverage that I get to see now.Unc1eM0nty wrote:Sad state of affairs this, he's old school, he's like a piece of the furniture, this circus won't be the same without him.
By all accounts he's a bit of a tw@#........... but he's our tw@#
To be fair Button spent most of the summer of 2012 in exactly the same position. His season went pair shaped from Spain to Silverstone with a resurgence in Germany.mrluke wrote:I think the Mclaren is a much more "peaky" car to setup than the str. The str is able to perform consistently at nearly every grand prix whereas we saw this weekend, one Mclaren in top 10,the other in 17th with the driver saying he doesn't understand why the car doesn't work.Pierce89 wrote:It really seems clear to me that McLaren and STR both have chassis fairly close to Ferrari level(str optimised for high df while Mclaren optimised for efficiency at a lower df level), but both are saddled with ane engine penalty of something >.5 sec/lap.ringo wrote:Mclaren's troubles are linked to the gamble to go with honda engines. The poor performance has put a lot of unwanted stress on an already struggling team.
When you compare them to Force India, you can see where FI has improved steadily while playing it safe and sticking to the evil they know. Ron should have kep the mercedes unit for another year and capture half decent results before switching to the very peculiar Honda.
Now they are in a very uncomfortable place. Honda MUST perform in 2017. I don't think Mclaren can take another mediocre year.
The chassis is an enigma, it's really hard to tell if it's crap or respectable, but Mclaren must get it right for 2017 as well.
once again u r talking about weak drivability, I can't understand?!PlatinumZealot wrote:So gow do you explain this?Sasha wrote:Suzuka is all about being smooth and losing zero speed in fast and mid speed corners.So a great chassis(keeping it level to the ground at all times) and PU drivability(still must have great ICE power and great HERS at the sametime, KERS not as important at this track) is a must here.
Mclaren chassis doesn't keep level all the time and eats rear tires so sucks on mid to fast corners.Honda PU is behind everybody on drivability.
http://i.imgur.com/JGHtasS.jpg
Ross said in a recent interview (http://www.grandprix247.com/2016/10/31/ ... a-f1-team/) that he would never go back to a team, so that is out of the cardsnevill3 wrote:I think Ron has engineered this exit so he can have Bernie's Job now we have new owners of F1. When he heard that that other Mr. F1 (Ross) was lining himself up for the job he had to do something drastic to be able to leave McLaren to be available next year himself.
Seriously though I am more concerned now than I have ever been, it would be sad to see McLaren go the same way that Williams has. Without a strong leader McLaren could be in danger of losing focus and ending up having a succession of "team Principles" just like Ferrari
I agree totally, all the pieces are in place for a stellar season next year, lets hope it happens and the board decide that they were wrong and go begging to Ron to come back and captain the ship. However if next year does prove to be a success maybe people will say it is because Ron has left!Mansell89 wrote:I think McLaren have got this wrong.
Ron needed to see this Honda project through. It hasn't seen success yet but they laid the foundations this year and the push should come in 2017 and 2018.
I know Ron is a tw@ but surely you want him in your camp. He had to come in to get some big calls made- get rid of a customer Merc engine, bring in a works engine (Honda), get a top driver (Alonso), snap up Prodromou and get the management around him sorted (Boullier for the race team, Capito for the company). As far as i could see, Ron was setting it up so that he could be hands off and worry about business instead of racing.
It is a massive call and if they don't bring in a brilliant person then it could be catastrophic. Ron knows more and has forgotten more about F1 than those Bahrainis ever could, and it was Dennis' vision that brought Mansour Ojieh into McLaren as an investor instead of a sponsor.
If Dennis' sponsorship "failings" is the problem, why has Ojjehs (essentially) own company (TAG) switched to Red Bull?
Ron might appear on another planet but he has navigated McLaren through choppy waters to be race winners in a highly competitive environment, overseeing rebirths in in the early 80s late 80s, 1997-1998, and 2007-2012.
They have had to be brave enough to suffer the Honda embarrassment in search of success, because being points contenders in a Merc customer car isn't good enough for Ron and his team, and they should be applauded for their ambition.
Let's hope that the development is set in motion similar to when Ross Brawn left Mercedes.
