Dennis: I changed my mind

Thursday 28th August 2008

Ron Dennis has admitted that although he was thinking about retirement last season, this year's Championship has resulted in a change of heart.

The McLaren team boss's future has been one of the hot topics of late as the F1 paddock questions whether he'll be retiring at the end of this season. Dennis, though, says he has no plans to do so despite hinting at retirement last year.

"I've already said on the record that at the beginning of 2007 I'd privately decided to step aside at the end of that year, moving to the role of Chairman of the McLaren Group, leaving the role of Chief Executive Officer of the McLaren Group to Martin Whitmarsh, currently Chief Operating Officer of the McLaren Group," he told the official F1 website.

"But, as the great economist John Maynard Keynes once famously said, 'When the situation changes, I change my mind.' Well, the situation did change, so I did change my mind.

"Now, I remain unflinchingly committed to the McLaren Group and the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team, and remain passionately engaged in leading the McLaren Group into exciting new areas of business, exemplified by, but not confined to, the groundbreaking projects currently being evaluated by McLaren Automotive."

Dennis, though, is confident that when the time does come for him to step down as team boss, McLaren has the personnel needed to fill the role.

"Having said that, the McLaren Group's senior management team is a fabulously impressive one, and I have complete faith in their ability to take the McLaren Group, working with all our shareholders, on to pastures even more exciting over the next generation," he continued.

"As I so often say, I regard myself as merely in charge of one of the chapters in the McLaren book, not the book itself."

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