We'll Miss The Old Sluggers

Wednesday 5th March 2008

Reports suggest that Ron Dennis may be quitting McLaren. Andrew Davies thinks a change of role is inevitable, but Ron won't be giving up his car parking space just yet.

'Ron Dennis To Step Down This Week' ran the headline. Well, it's Wednesday and it hasn't happened so far. The claim in the Sunday Times newspaper that the embattled head of McLaren was going to relinquish his position in charge of the F1 team and say farewell should supposedly have been made by now.

According to The Times, 'Dennis is expected to announce his decision in midweek."

Knowing how precise McLaren like to be about everything, then if the report were true, we would be reading it right now.

The fact is that Ron Dennis is highly unlikely to sever his links with McLaren entirely and bid farewell to F1. However he's almost certain to scale down his involvement for one key reason.

The strains of Stepneygate from last year have taken their toll. Most significant of all has been the news that he is separating from his American-born wife, Lisa. With three children, there will be a lot to sort out at home.

Given that immense disruption, flying round the globe to every single race would seem to be a luxury he cannot afford right now.

Patrick Head and Frank Williams are quite happy to leave it up to their managers for many of the races, so it would seem the obvious step for Mclaren to push Martin Whitmarsh a little further into the spotlight.

It will be an irritation that the Italian Communications Police have been making misleading claims about their recent visits to Woking and bigging up the significance of the information they've received. It's quite understandable why they'd do that. If you had to justify an expensive foreign trip to your bosses - maybe staying a couple of nights in London and taking in a few shows - you wouldn't claim that it's been of very little help. No, you'd want to claim it was wholly justified, the right thing to do.

What's far more fascinating than Ron Dennis's management issues, though, is the situation at Maranello. Ron's demise is quite obvious, we all know why it's happened, who was responsible and how the drama unfolded. What is far more mysterious and hence a lot more interesting is why Jean Todt was stripped of his position as boss of the Ferrari F1 team.

Having stated that he was not ready to retire and was quite happy to be in charge, and that he didn't need Ross Brawn to come back and run the F1 team, he got unceremoniously moved aside for Stefano Domenicali. The most successful F1 team boss in Ferrari history was effectively dumped. And it's hard to see why. With Todt being forced to go back and look after the road car division and Ross Brawn being told he was no longer needed, the team have taken on a far more Italian look. Surely it's got to be a bit more complex than that.

With Ron likely to change his role at McLaren it's likely that the two main protagonists from 2007 will be taking a backseat in 2008. Love him or loathe him, F1 will be a lot duller without Ron.

It's thanks to Ron's attention to detail that Senna was as good as he was (but that's an argument for another time).

Martin Whitmarsh has been with McLaren for 19 years and has all the corporate charisma of a speak-your-weight machine. Stefano Domenicali has more interesting things to say, but he's a technocrat, he's not as emotional as Todt.

With Todt and Dennis you might always get something waspish, something spiky and rash (such as Ron's quote about racing Fernando in China). Whitmarsh and Domenicali are both calmer and more calculating.

We'll miss the old sluggers.

Andrew Davies

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