McLaren, Ron Dennis, And The Future Of The Team?
Written by George Katinger · September 14, 2007
Well the WMSC has rendered their verdict, and after the shock of the verdict wears off, there are questions that will need to be asked and answered.
1. How can Ron Dennis publicly state that all of his team submitted affidavits to the WMSC that they had no knowledge of any Ferrari data, when the ruling clearly points out Alonso, Coughlan and de la Rosa were swapping all manner of info? And the two drivers submitted their emails as evidence? Ron, is your head that far in the sand that you can’t see the truth or you just can’t face up to it?
2. What should McLaren do for the last four races of the season? Ron has stated that it’s vital for his team to fight for the driver’s championship, and that no doubt is due to his intensely competitive nature. But I know what I’d do; I’d send both of my drivers out at Spa come Sunday morning, have them do their installation lap and park. And not race in the last three events either. Let Ferrari “win” both titles in the most meaningless way possible.
3. What future does McLaren have in F1 after this? Whether they are banned in 2008 or not is an irrelevancy, next year is irrevocably compromised. From the fact that development of their ‘08 car must be in shambles from a technical/schedule perspective, to the fact they need to preview their ‘08 entry to the FIA/Ferrari cabal, there is no way they can be competitive. Why bother?
4. Why a 100 million dollar fine? Why not 500 million?? Or some other higher crippling amount? That’s one way of keeping a team off the grid in lieu of “excluding” them in 2008.
5. Where will Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa work next year? After their involvement with Coughlan and the Ferrari dirt and their forced divulging of information McLaren will have no choice but to release both of them. Good luck fellas; let’s see who snaps up your contracts next year.
6. How many other team members will be fired or demoted within the team due to Ron’s publicly stated position that we didn’t use the data? Mr. Lowe, Mr. Neale, are you concerned? You should be.
7. What does Mercedes-Benz think of the entire situation? As engine suppliers and 40% owners of the team, will the M-B board tolerate such a besmirching of their name and reputation? I don’t think so. If McLaren have any future in F1 it will be as an M-B majority owned operation, with the name McLaren consigned to the trash heap of history. Bruce McLaren is spinning in his grave!
8. Will Ron have the balls to appeal this grossly over reactive decision? With the money involved, I don’t see how he cannot appeal. And that will open the door to an even harsher verdict, such as a formal exclusion for 2008 as well as this year. He’s screwed if doesn’t and screwed harder if he does.
Are there any positives from this tawdry mess McLaren have created for themselves? Ron will resign, sooner than he lets on, Ferrari will continue to strut with meaningless titles this year, and Dave Richards and Prodrive will have the full backing of the organization formerly known as McLaren.
For what it’s worth, I think McLaren are guilty of absolutely nothing. In the most competitive sport in the world they were given information on a silver platter by an unscrupulous Ferrari employee, considered it, rejected it as worthless and continued to develop their own car. They did not seek out the information; they gained nothing from it on a competition level, and are unreasonably penalized. Basically they have been given the death penalty for a jaywalking offense.
The truly sad part of all this is the Ferrari brass think nothing of winning titles in this manner; they are the most unsporting of team owners in any “sport” I’ve ever seen. A pox on their house, I’m sure even Michael Schumacher is embarrassed at the depths to which the prancing horse have sunk. Along with Bruce, I’m sure Enzo is also spinning in his grave.
Comments
22 Responses to “McLaren, Ron Dennis, And The Future Of The Team?”
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Home · Blog · Forum · Racing On TV · Archives
About FM.com · Contact Us · Log in
Copyright © 2003-2010 Accession Media, LLC · View our Privacy Policy
The best way out of this for the team is as you mentioned; MB swallows up the other 60%. Something that was inevitable already. The best way out of any PR nightmare is new management.
Now, on to the juicier bits. I’m actually appalled at the ruling. The longer I think about it, the more I think it was Coughlan, de la Rosa and Alonso that were using any data gleaned from Ferrari. Why were they the only ones NOT penalized by the WMSC? Why are these 3 still employeed by McLaren? Why do I actually feel sorry for Ron Dennis when I think he’s one of the biggest asses in F1, only rivaled by Luca di and his toady?
What of Michael is an important question. If and when he leaves the prancing horse, where will he go, if anywhere? Consulting at BMW or McLaren, somewhere where he’ll actually be used for his knowledge and not just appearance?
One thing McLaren are guilty of (this mainly rests on Ronny-boys’ shoulders) is hubris. He thought he could make it all go away if he made it look like it didn’t happen. This is what happens when you try to cover up the dirt in your house. It eventually makes everything in it dirty. No matter how clean you are to start with.
As I said elsewhere, the points penalty is beyond reasoning. The monetary fine won’t kill them. The most they’ll have to pay is 70 million Dollars, that’s only 50.5 million Euros.
As for my team loyalties? Ferrari road cars will ALWAYS capture my passion, but their sporting ethics leave a lot to be desired. I think a certain Mario has never pissed me off (and he’s made interesting comments about inheriting 2nd place in the constructors championship). His drivers may not shine as brightly as others, but they’re getting the job done, and their machinery is improving all the time.
Good article George. I just read how the emails got to the FIA. It was not Fernando, eventhough, he blackmailed Ron after the Hungary quali fiasco. Ron chose to get himself humiliated before being blackmailed by FA. Don’t know if I blame him as LH would probably do the same. I like Fernando, but I think he will only go fast on the FP, he will be slowed down, discritely, by MCLaren and he will not win the Championship. McLaren does not want to make it noticeable or they will be further penalized by FIA or LH will get put at the back. I think McLaren are completely done this year and I think it is a shame. What I do not understan is where Bernie on all this? Why does he allow this shit to happen, when all teams spy and get information from people that leave. At least makes us watch to see what else is going to happen.
I have an M3 and a 7er BMW for tuning fun and a Quattroporte for everyday use; so do like BMW and Ferrari but not a rabid fanboy of either team. I loved McLaren waaaay back in CanAm days and have been on again/off again about them over the years. I don’t like MB cars, so have pulled against them mainly since MB has been involved.
Having set the scene of where I come from, here’s what a neutral party thinks.
Ferrari had a complete arse working for them, he pulled the dirty deed. Not a Ferrari guilt in any shape or form. If a bank had a dirty teller that stole from them and gave the money to terrorists or drug dealers or even an orphanage, how could it be the bank’s fault?
McLaren may or may not have used the information. I certainly can’t tell from what has been made public. Here’s the interesting part: FA and de la Rosa provided information. If it made them out to be using the info but didn’t nail the team, then why would Mosely (who I hate, and that’s using the word lightly) nail McLaren? Especially since they bring so much cash into F1?
Last question: why bash FA if he provided info that is fact? So you and Speedvision are both in synch that being honest is bad? I’ll bet you also love Barry Bonds!
We’re missing facts, and in their absence, it doesn’t make sense for Mosely and BE to damage F1 by playing games. And though not an FA fan, the more I see of Dennis’ ‘tude this year, the less I have a problem with FA shoving a shiv in his back.
Now that the full story has come out I’m basically disgusted with everybody.
Ferrari? What can you say, is there anything they will not do.
However Ferrari aside, Ron Dennis astonishes me. First is his insistance that the emails prove nothing & that MM has not benefited from them. If so, why did Ron report their existance to the FIA? They are afterall worthless according to Ron.
His test driver is asking for Ferrari data - knowing full well that it is illegally gained - & Ron has no problem with the conduct of his own employee. If MM are innocent in this whole matter & the MM employee Coghlan is the villian, what of PDLR? & Alonso for that matter?
George is right, Ron is in denial & can’t face the truth. As the head of MM if he has no idea what his staff are up to, or has not explained to them what sort of behaviour is acceptable, then what sort of a manager is he.
I was amazed how arrogantly he brushed of the fine, stating that the constructors points earned in the first half of the season would cover half of it. Hardly the words of a man who is remorseful for the actions of his staff.
At the end of the day, despite the FIA’s often weird way of governing the sport & the shamelessness of those arseholes at Ferrari, Mercedes must be concerned about it’s image. I’m seeing a buyout at McLaren in the near future & Ron pensioned off.
Well if mclaren are discretly slowing FA he did ok in sat practice 3rd, and Q3 3 just a tenth from pole. LH in the better car was 3 tenths off in practice and Q3. Makes me think we are off track in the inner thinkings of Mclaren. I don’t think they will slow Alonso at all. If Alonso was going to blackmail Ron…it would not have taken 2 months, in fact Ron would have been a little quicker to self report than wait around for FA to squeal…which he didn’t. If it happened in a few days, maybe I’d buy the rubish, but way too much time passed from Hungary to Ron self reporting. As stated above Ron is shugging off the fine. Like maybe he is feeling he is getting what he deserves and not getting something that is unfair almost. Maybe in a year we can hear the real story from a retired Ron himself. The guilt Alonso has in this case, and yes he played a part, but not for a second do I believe he was taking the team down…that is just drama. (If he was going to…he would have)
Something has changed though in the team, because Alonso has handily been the best driver for the last month. Does this not fly in the face of the team giving him less support?
I believe we should all look at this from a business point of view. In that I received competitive information from a competitor and then used it to gain advantage then I should be promptly fired.
Read the employee agreements that almost anyone has, and signed to become employed. My feeling is that Alonso and de la Rosa (and Coughlan of course) should have been fired right before the Thursday meeting in an effort to show the WMSC that the behavior, actions and character in and around this situation are not tolerated in any business (I know it would not be tolerated in mine). This may have saved such a sever penalty (think of your sponsors, and corporate ownership reputations!). If I were Dennis I would have gone through the entire MM organization, determine who knew the Ferrari info was present and fired them all (including myself if necessary). This is what would have happened in any other corporation in the entire world.
I agree; good luck Alonso and de la Rosa finding F1 work next season. Stepney, and Coughlan, what were you thinking - you just torched your careers you worked so hard to have. Your real character shined.
By the way, nice write up, although I disagree with a few points, but hey, we all have an opinion. Thanks for the forum…
McLaren did nothing wrong?
Receiving stolen property is a felony just about every where.
Moreover, they actively solicited information from Ferrari - repeatedly. De La Rosa asked Alonso, Alonso asked Coughlan and Coughlan would call Stepney. Then, based on what he told them, they’d retest.
I suppose, with your approach, it’s just fine if you leave your door unlocked and someone comes in and steals your car. If the thief then wrecks the car and gets caught - no big deal. Just act as though nothing happened.
Dennis and McLaren richly deserve what they got — even more so because Dennis repeatedly lied about what happened in an effort to cover it up.
The one thing you are right about is that Dennis and his crew ought to be fired, with no time wasted.
What hasn’t been established as yet, did Stepney approach Coughlan, or did Coughlan approach Stepney?
Ralph, what you choose to ignore is McLaren didn’t come into Ferrari’s garage and steal their car, Stepney gave it away. To me that’s a huge difference, there isn’t a team on the grid, who given the opportunity to see how another top team’s car is set up would not take advantage of the chance. Right or wrong, it’s the way the “sport” is. McLaren got caught, they pay a price . McLaren’s biggest mistake is as Freestyle states, Dennis tried hiding behind a thin excuse which he couldn’t defend. He and anyone else connected to the data should go, and go now.
It has been speculated that if all teams in F1 were held to the same scrutiny as Mclaren, there would only be Ferrari driving 2 cars around the circuit next year. Did you hear some quotes from some pretty big names in the sport lately? Williams, BMW, Stewart to name a few. Why is it that the ones “in” the game are not on board with the findings and penalty?
Maybe because it has been happening for the last 40 years and is normal behaviour. What used to be thought of as punishable was not what happened here. This is recreating the rules once again. This whole season has been F1 micro managed like never before. Alonso in Hungary was new territory as well. Ferrari were grasping at straws was Rons deffense, basically saying if you put the police, a team of staff, resources, to prove the other guy broke the rules….you will come out ahead. Just today it was said that Renault may have done something similiar to Mclaren…spend what Ferrari did and you bet they will be found guilty too. Ferrari only needed to take down the leader. My belief is that the back of the pack could have been taken down too….but the return on investment might have been less rewarding to Toad.
I want to hear more from the guys in the sport and not watching the sport. The peers to Mclaren didn’t have much good to say…maybe Flav was happy, but he wants Alonso, so turmoil is good.
The report that was given gave the same “information” that was soo sensitive and stolen??? Think the rest of the field might put Nitrogen, helium, whatever in their tires now? Think they might try a more forward wieght bias….many so called “secrets” were in plain friggin text. Mclaren took one for the team, now the rest can have the 100 million dolar rubish for free secrets. It is a joke. The only thing that actually changed as a result of this whole scandle was that Ferrari got caught trying to cheat…and lost their floor. Everything else was petty to the actual outcome of any races. No one even Ferrari believes the information was used effectively to actually as a team improve the car…like 80% of the engineers would have to be collectively working on it as an open book. Perdos tips would have made no difference.
ANd so Ron is finger pointing to other teams that have done the same kind of petty cheating in the past…things that were wrong…but had NO competitive outcome really. They let it go as Jakie Stewart was quoted as saying….happens all the time.
Nice system they have created. A team can knowingly, blatently, (bend the rules) cheat and have nothing done to them, until caught and they remove their cheats off the car…..yet if someone comes to you from a team cheating, tells you his team is cheating, but hands you a disk that proves the cheat…yet is “stolen information” then you are toast for having knowledge of the cheat.
Of course this is not exactly what happened…but maybe it what was intended from the start, then things turned bad and got out of hand with the rest of what was on that disk…perhaps selling secrets from that engineer.
Alonso did what anyone in his position would have done. Max is actually calling him a HERO and Ron a lier. Ron wants this to go away for damage control…Alonso can’t smell worse in this than he already does, but others might get dragged into the mud either more..or new people join the mud. It is bad when 100 Mil is worth shelling out for closure.
George:
Good article as usual. But… (you knew it was coming)
Stepney didn’t merely “give it away”. He first stole it from Ferarri, then he gave it away. If accepting stolen goods is a crime, what about the theft itself? What was the penalty there? None.
Thanks for the nice words Bill.
Gave away, stole, I agree either way it wasn’t Stepney’s property to dispense. That’s the strangest part of this entire mess, he still inists he didn’t give the 780 pages to Coughlan, even though Coughlan says he got it from NS. Just another part of the Ferrari conspiracy, they offered Coughlan a deal if he named Stepney! (wink wink, chuckle chukle). Coughlan is the SOB who should do jail time.
Stepney will no doubt be tried in Italy and may even do jail time. With everything Italian it may take years to resolve. I still maintain that it’s all Ferrari’s fault for keeping a disgruntled employee under contract. If they released Stepney in December, none of this would have happened.
this fia and farroari thing is why this US doesnt give a sh8t about F1 racing
this is going to be good
How do we know this was the first time information was purloined?
After Mclaren’s great gain from last year and with a tire switch this year. They may have had information earlier than has come to light.
Lou:
Nitrogen in tires is as old as me (old). We were using Nitrogen in the early 70’s in Formula B! I heard them commenting on Nitrogen on Speed this morning and couldn’t believe it. Right now in Seminole, FL I can go to my local Jeep (!) dealer and get Nitrogen in my tires for $40. Now let’s see… Jeep now owned by Chrysler… Chrysler now owned by… Oh never mind.
Terry,
The McLaren car does not remotely resemble the Ferrari, how could they improve that much using Ferrari info if there are no commonalities between the two?
The truly disturbing info produced by the Italian police is the ongoing dialogue between the two knucklheads, right up until July. But I will not outright condemn McLaren for that until someone can establish what was discussed. Unlike Max I need more than “suspicion” before crippling a team I’m supposed to regulate.
George, I think your missing the point here.
The reasoning behind the decision has never been whether MM gained an advantage by use of the stolen info, but that they used it at all.
If ronnie had divulged the fact that he was aware of stolen documents the day he found out about them, it would have been game over. But he insisted and still insists that MM were “squeaky clean”. (I wonder if he were talking about the shop floor?) This is what riled the FIA and earned the team respect they deserve. If ronnie was just a little more remorseful of his employees acting badly the fine and points deduction would have been far less. If you go into a courtroom and plead innocent to a judge, then that judge finds out you were lying through your teeth would you expect that judge to rule favorably in your case?
If anything WLB(whiney little bitch) saved MM from exclusion from both titles, he is a hero.
I think MM needs to find a WLB replacement asap, because he certainly deserves a better team to continue his career with. I’m sure there is a hole in the contract for him to find other employment under the circumstances.
My suggestion is to poach Jerques Villanova from nascar and give him the #1 status he deserves, and then ronnie can replace one WLB for another.
“The reasoning behind the decision has never been whether MM gained an advantage by use of the stolen info, but that they used it at all.”
I agree with the premise, including Ron getting slapped harder than he should have because of his stonewalling.For mere possession of the info they should be penalized.
But the FIA and Max the meddler have stated they have imposed the severe penalty on the the “Suspicion” Mclaren gained an advantage. Now that’s plain BS and we all know it.
If Ferrari had a reliable car this year the points chase would be much closer. MM gaining any “advantage” would be moot.
And if you don’t think the size of the penalty and the vigorous pursuit of MM has nothing to do with Max’s intense hatred for Ron and ass kissing of Ferrari, then you don’t follow the sport that closely.
It’s just racing, we’ll all get over it and have lots to chat up over the winter. Especially watching Lebebe test and race NASTYCARS. Can’t wait for his first race when someone “rubs” him a bit.
the
I agree with your feelings about the Maxine and Bernice show.
But if you remember, it was not Maxine who decided the penalty, it was the FIA World Council. In the speed interview with Maxine at Spa he stated that he thought the peanlty should have been much harsher. Which confirms your feelings about his witch hunt of MM. But the same council decided on no punishment during the first hearing because there was no eveidence that MM had used this stolen info. What changed since that meeting? The FIA has released the transcripts from the hearing today and it appears there was more than enough evidence that MM did gain an advantage, if not using the Feroggis(ferrari/toad) set-ups directly, having tried the set-ups and deciding that theirs was better for their car. Nobody knows if MM’s set-ups are a mix of both teams or theirs only. It also seems there is proof of many more breaches of info than just the disk found at Cough-up-a-career’s house.
It seems as though Stepon-a-frog made regular calls to Cough-up-a-career before each race this year, which implies MM had set-up, tire strategy, fuel loads and various other detailed info about specific race venues at its disposal. Which explains why Maxine wanted exclusion of MM for this year and next. It was clearly a case of cheating to the detriment of the sport. If a team like Honder had done the same thing I feel the penalty would have been similar. It hopefully sends a message to all teams that cheating will not be tolerated.
The FIA spends so much energy policing the rules to let blatant cheating go unpunished would destroy its credibilty.
Now your feelings about the Maxine and Bernice show are dead on. We all called for change many times in the past. We thought we were rid of Bernice when he sold his interest, but alas, we were wrong. The FIA clearly sees Feroggi as its poster child, who could blame them, Ferrogi fans outnumber all other fans by 2 to 1.
It’s their meal ticket for now and the near future. Who knows how long the manufacturers will be around, or Mclaren for that matter after this incident. Look at who we have for teams now, which ones will be there in 10 years? Williams is nearing his shelf life sell by date. Car companys will fade when profits fade. The Spykers of the world cannot sustain the long term health of the sport. That narrows the field considerably. It would look like the 05 Indy race at every venue if it were not for the car companys today, a sad thought.
I get a feeling that when we go into the winter break, not many fans will come back to Formula 1. I think there won’t be as much anticipation for the new season as there was this year. Whichever way F1 lies to itself, this is gonna hurt financially in the new season.