Ron Dennis

Dennis at the 1990 United States Grand Prix

**Ronald "Ron" Dennis** (born 1 June 1947 in Woking, Surrey, England) is the team principal of McLaren. Dennis started his career as a mechanic, before starting successful junior formulae teams Rondel Racing and then Project Four Racing, which took over the management of the McLaren team in 1980. In 1981, Dennis became the team principal of the McLaren Formula One team, and was instrumental in transforming the outfit into a regular world championship contender.

## Early life

Dennis was born and raised in Woking, Surrey, and studied motor vehicle engineering at Guildford Technical College. He began working for the Cooper Formula One team in 1966 as a mechanic at the age of 18 where he worked alongside lead driver Jochen Rindt. In 1968 Rindt moved to Brabham and took Dennis with him. For the 1969 season Rindt moved to Lotus; however, Dennis stayed on, choosing instead to work for Sir Jack Brabham.

When Brabham chose retirement in 1971, Dennis and his colleague Neil Trundle decided to start their own team. In 1971, Rondel Racing was founded in Dennis's native Woking. Money was at a premium though and Dennis was trying to find sponsorship. Through Ron's then girlfriend, who was the daughter of John Phelps, director of Phelps Antique Furniture in Twickenham, one of its regular customers Tony Vlassopulos, a barrister son of a Greek shipowner, was asked to sponsor Rondel.

Vlassopulos asked his friend Ken Grob, chairman of Alexander Howden, insurance brokers in London if he was interested in joining in. Grob said yes on the proviso that his young son Ian Grob could be part of the team, which was agreed. From that moment forward, Vlassopulos became Dennis' first sponsor.

By the mid-1970s the team was enjoying considerable success in Formula Two. Rondel aspired to be more than a customer team, however, and Dennis soon managed to find an additional backer to Grob and Vlassopulos in Motul, to help fund a Rondel F1 car. For 1974, a Ray Jessop-designed F1 car was planned but the energy crisis affected Motul's backing. Ultimately Dennis was unable to obtain sufficient funds to support the F1 venture, so Trundle continued with the Jessop-designed car while Vlassopulos and Grob took over ownership of the team, renamed Token Racing.

Dennis regrouped, forming a Marlboro-backed F2 team for two talented and well-sponsored drivers from Ecuador. In 1975 Dennis founded the Project Three team, and his cars once again became race winners. In 1976 Dennis founded Project Four Racing. This team went on to great success in Formula 2 and Formula 3, winning championships in 1979 and 1980 with Philip Morris (Marlboro) backing. Project Four also participated in the build programme for Procar BMW M1 racing cars. As his business interests became increasingly successful and lucrative, Dennis aspired to return to Formula One, hiring talented designer John Barnard to spearhead the design and development of an innovative new F1 car.

Dennis's return to Formula One was well-timed. The recent poor performance of the former world championship-winning McLaren team had prompted Philip Morris executive John Hogan to initiate a takeover of the outfit by Dennis' Project Four. Effectively a reverse takeover, the team was rebranded as *McLaren International* with Dennis in control. In addition to hiring Barnard to begin work on the team's revolutionary new carbon fibre composite chassis, the MP4/1, Dennis also successfully recruited the Porsche automobile firm to build the cars' engines from 1984-87. The 'MP4' designation originally stood for Marlboro Project Four (the MP4/1 design was complete before the merger).

## Building McLaren

### The 1980s

Prior to Dennis's arrival at McLaren in September 1980, the team was going through a particularly uncompetitive stint. The team had last won a grand prix with then defending World Champion James Hunt in 1977 and had finished a lowly ninth in the 1980 constructors' championship 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 for 1981, a season that saw McLaren once again winning races. The year also saw many other teams struggling to duplicate Barnard's revolutionary carbon-fibre chassis.

In 1981 Dennis and his business partners bought out the other McLaren shareholders, Teddy 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 then persuaded the retired Niki Lauda to return to Formula One for the 1982 season and at the season opening South African Grand Prix the double World Champion lined up alongside Watson at the start of the season (only after an F1 drivers strike was averted). By the end of the year both drivers had secured two victories and 1983 began with more success with Watson's win in Long Beach. No more victories followed that year but Lauda debuted the Porsche-powered MP4-1E interim chassis at that season's Dutch Grand Prix. By the following race, the Italian Grand Prix, both cars were powered by turbocharged engines: McLaren-Ford had become McLaren-TAG. Convinced by his initial investment, Ojjeh became the major investor in McLaren, taking 60 percent of the shares. By the end of the year, Alain Prost, who had finished second in the 1983 Drivers' Championship with Renault but was fired after publicly criticising the team following the loss of both the Drivers' and Constructors Championships, had been signed to replace Watson. With the 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, with Barnard's revolutionary MP4/2 car his work was rewarded with 12 wins from 16 races and both drivers' and constructors' titles. Lauda took the drivers' crown by a half-point from his McLaren teammate Prost, with both drivers scoring more than double the tally of the third-placed Elio de Angelis. While neither Lauda nor Prost were the fastest combination of the year, that title going to reigning World Champion Nelson Piquet in his BMW powered Brabham BT53 who claimed 9 pole positions, the McLaren-TAG's reliability was unmatched. As said by Clive James in commentary on the official video review of the Formula One season produced by FOCA:

> "Anything as fast as the McLarens fell apart, anything as reliable finished later."
>
>

 The following year the situation was reversed and Prost won his first World Championship while Lauda suffered multiple failures and only won one race. At his home race in Austria Lauda announced his permanent retirement from Formula One at the end of the season. McLaren finished eight points ahead of second placed Ferrari that year but the pack was closing and in 1986, McLaren lost out to Williams, although the consistent Prost won the drivers' title. Lauda's replacement was the 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, who also retired from Formula One at the end of the 1986 season.

Dennis signed Stefan Johansson from Ferrari for the 1987 season to partner Prost, but 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 rivals Williams and Lotus. Williams' unwillingness to accept a Japanese driver (Satoru Nakajima) in place of Nigel Mansell, as well as their displeasure with Williams team management for losing the 1986 drivers' title, led Honda to transfer their engine supply to the McLaren team. Dennis made no secret that Johansson's seat was only temporary as his intention had been to sign the Brazilian Ayrton Senna (who had developed a close relationship with Honda while at Lotus in 1987) to partner double champion Prost. Senna was under contract with Lotus for 1987 but Dennis got his man and midway through the year it was announced that Senna would be joining the team, along with Honda, for three years from 1988.

## Communication style

"Ronspeak" is the term coined for the style of speech used by Dennis, and has become a well-used phrase in the F1 paddock to describe sentences of unneeded complexity; Dennis is renowned for his verbose, evasive and cautious answers to questions from Formula One journalists.

## Notes

1. ↑ Jeremy Taylor (10 July 2016). Ron Dennis: Life at McLaren-Honda. Luxery London.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"The team: management biographies". *mclaren.com*. McLaren. Archived from the original on 12 March 2007. Retrieved 8 April 2007.
3. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Keating, Frank (13 July 1991). "British Grand Prix: Man behind the man behind the wheel - Frank Keating meets Ron Dennis, whose pursuit of perfection still sparks McLaren". *The Guardian*. Guardian Newspapers.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Tony Vlassopulos. *oldracingcars.com*.
5. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Henry, Alan (25 February 2003). "Motor Racing: Jaguar land Crocodile's brother". *wikipedia:The Guardian*. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
6. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Blundsden, John (7 July 1988). "Dennis confronts the difficulties of his own success". *The Times*. Times Newspapers.
7. ↑ Two Till The End - 1984 Rd.2 South Africa on YouTube
8. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Nobody can wheel and deal better than this Ron Manager". *The Evening Standard*. 15 June 2007. McLaren chief Ron Dennis is renowned for giving excessively businesslike and cautious answers to tough questions... Dennis's style of speech is so legendary within the pit lane it has even been given its own name "Ronspeak"
9. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Townsend, Nick (31 July 2005). "The Interview: Ron Dennis: We Must Approve Our Appeal. We Might Even Race at Night"". *Independent on Sunday*. The phrase 'Ronspeak' describes the business-oriented way in which he speaks during interviews.
10. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Baker, Andrew (14 July 2007). "McLaren's image on the line". *The Daily Telegraph*. Dennis is a stickler for smart dress, self-discipline and courtesy. A former mechanic for the Brabham team, he perhaps over-compensates for his humble roots in the sport by a love of corporate language and technical terminology affectionately termed Ronspeak.