If Ron Dennis had only been a more emollient character, he’d probably never have had to leave the unique £2 billion racing and engineering empire he spent more than three decades building.
Without the celebrated spikiness, the appetite for perversity and the desire to control every detail that are part of his nature, Dennis might now be moving into his senior years as a kind of British Enzo Ferrari, revered, honoured and viewed as an asset by younger, more modern management that now operates the McLaren Group, and wise enough not to get in their way.
Read more: Ron Dennis sells entire McLaren stake
It’s arguable that Dennis’s achievements, when summarised for history, will come to look every bit as great as Ferrari’s - perhaps even greater. Like Ferrari, Dennis moved into the business of racing as rather an upstart, but built a famous and world-beating organisation on two things: determination and the ability to pull off bold financial deals.
In his heyday, he provided the cars and team that made many great racing drivers - Prost, Senna, Häkkinen and Hamilton come immediately to mind - bringing new levels of professionalism and polish to racing which others had to emulate to have any chance to beat him. Even the notorious Spygate scandal of the late-2000s - which brought a cataclysmic points-loss and a £50 million fine - couldn't hold McLaren back. It bounced straight into the fairytale of Lewis Hamilton’s first world championship win.
Dennis’s achievements in building the McLaren Technical Centre, an extraordinarily beautiful and functional Norman Foster-designed headquarters on the outskirts of Woking, and his vision for the latest road car company, McLaren Automotive - now impressively profitable in only its sixth year of life - eclipse even the achievements of old Enzo, who started making road cars as a way of financing his racing, and built his finest (with key and lifelong help from the likes of Pininfarina and Scaglietti) in an era when you could simply build what was in your head, not what was dictated by a blizzard of conflicting global road car design rules.
Despite current events, Dennis will not slip into lonely oblivion. Behind the scenes, he moves in a circle of wealthy friends, including some of racing’s other grandees wise enough not to be his business partners. It is possible to see him continuing to be active in the charitable sphere, where he has always been generous and modest.
Whatever happens in future, Dennis will deserve to be honoured by his supreme achievements. But with a smoother departure from a McLaren - something about which I understand he was repeatedly advised - this might have been much more easily forthcoming.
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as i was saying...
mclaren are just a kit car manufacturer? on what basis - that they buy things in, in that exact way that all the other manufacturers buy things in? have you really never heard of bosch fuel injection? zf or getrag gearboxes? sub-contracted (yamaha, cosworth, ricardo, etc) engine development? bosch stability management, traction control and abs? trw steering? brembo? lockheed? brake pads. springs and dampers. light bulbs. bearings. bushes. pumps. clutches. wheels. tyres. all bought in, not produced in house. this includes ferrari. ferrari gearboxes are made by graziano trasmissioni, they also supply mclaren. your apparently beloved ferrari has an interior of fiat switchgear, as well as all the other bought in parts/systems, and yet isn't also a kit car?
contrary to what you've told yourself, they are frequently poorly built, badly designed, and simply don't drive properly. there may be a few good ones, but there are a lot of bad ones too. it's easy to forget that the daytona drives like a fully loaded wagon, that the 348 has no feel. mclaren haven't yet got around to making bad ones.
if historical ferraris really were as good as you think they are, lamborghini actually would have stuck to making tractors.
it's somehow seen as ok if a ferrari has niggles and quirks, to "not be a car for a lady to drive", not handle properly, falls to bits a bit. it's fine, because, look at it!
meanwhile, a mclaren has to have the build and reliability of a bmw, be able to cover mileage like a porsche does, while handling like a lotus.
seriously? anyone fancy waking up? the article was actually talking about ron and his achievements.
Where's the moderator?
equal to Ferrari?
F1 is but ONE of Ferrari's activities (as is the case with McL to a lesser extent) and it is that width of accomplishments for such a long time, let alone the continuous production of world-class super-cars that mark Ferrari head and shoulders above just about anything else in successful sales, image, brand, etc.
McL want to be regarded in such light? Ok, start by building your own road and racing engines, transmissions, etc. we'll resume the discussion then?