12/04/2014
NEWS STORY
Firmly back at the helm at McLaren, Ron Dennis admits that his team's recent lack of form was hard to take.
"It was painful," he told the official Formula One website. "If you pass executive responsibilities, the only way you can judge the outcome is if it is one hundred percent, otherwise you can accuse yourself of influencing the decisions.
"In the end I felt that the right thing to do was to change direction, to refocus the team and remove from the team anything that was not contributing to a focused effort. There were too many in the team that were distracted by other activities."
Of course, the previous man in charge was Martin Whitmarsh, however, slipping back into his legendary 'Ronspeak', and without even naming him, he refused to blame the beleaguered Englishman.
"If you look at a racing car, you can just set-up the car with less front wing, the wrong springs, the wrong brakes, and the car will be uncompetitive," he said. "Companies don't always need radical change, they need to be tuned. So it would be difficult to say what has been achieved by me since the 16th of January. But one thing is for sure - that many of the people in the company didn't know what was 'true north'. They didn't have the right heading.
"Many times in the last few weeks I've taken the time to explain what is 'true north', what the direction is that we're going in. The biggest thing that achieves is that it avoids people wasting energy. If you are pulling in different directions then you are wasting energy. What you can't do is suddenly make a car that is behind on downforce have downforce - that takes time. What you can do is clearly define the target. You can choose the best people to reach the goal in the shortest period of time. Of course we have the racing team, but the racing team is 600 people, and getting them aligned in one direction is what management is all about.
"We can learn from the past," he continues, "but I don't think we should spend too much time in the past. Formula One only responds to one hundred percent commitment from every team member and I didn't feel that the environment that was in the team - and surrounding the team - was a winning environment. So an environmental change was required."
Asked if Eric Boullier knows where 'true north' is, Dennis replies: "Inevitably, for some time the needle wavers a few degrees before it settles. When it is five degrees in one direction and five in the other, even I would probably say 'okay, what is true north?' You're looking at the terrain in front of you and maybe north is there - but there might be a mountain in the way. You might, maybe, have to say that you have to adapt and accept the immediate challenges - and that was the approach that we took."
As clear as mud... but with both men known for their refusal to budge attitude, and Dennis very much a 'hands on' kind of leader, there have to be some lines of demarcation.
"There is no line of demarcation because we both want the same thing," says Dennis. "There are periods in my own career that I can reflect on. For example, in the very beginning of my career the drivers were older than me, in the middle of my career the drivers had the same age as me, and now the drivers are younger than me. It's the dynamic of how you behave.
"One of my first drivers, in my Formula Two team, was Graham Hill. He was a double world champion and you start thinking 'gee, how am I going to handle Graham Hill, a double world champion?' But I did. Ayrton Senna was a more comparable age and you remember Ayrton as a useful person. Now you have Eric who is younger than me - so now I have more wisdom!
"There is not anything he can tell me about motor racing, but what I can do is to give him an understanding of what is the right path to follow, and how to modify his understanding of the DNA and the character of McLaren in order to become more effective. His approach from Lotus has to be adapted. We have to get the best of two different directions, because in the end we are a much bigger animal; we are more complicated. And of course there is the passion to win.
"The reason why I have asked him to join the company is that he is clearly a racer: he understands motor racing because he's come from the bottom to the top. That is an asset when you are running a racing team. You have to have gone through the junior categories; you have to understand winning and losing in a different way. So far I think it is working very well, but of course it's only three races into the season."
At the same time that the team has seen a loss in form and consequent demotion along the pitlane, a number of key figures have departed Woking. Asked how it felt to lose such people he admits: "Obviously competitive people want to be in competitive teams, so they become vulnerable. I think that most of these losses could have been avoided with stronger management, so it's a little bit of rebuilding.
"At the moment I have macro challenges and micro challenges and at the moment I am dealing with the bigger issues - but at the same time I am getting to know some of the strengths and weaknesses of some of the people that have joined the company in the past two or three years in order to bring better judgment to bear in regards to the future. So I haven't taken any big steps yet - but I will."
One of the new faces at McLaren is Kevin Magnussen, a youngster who invokes memories of the last rookie Dennis took a punt on. Asked if the Dane is another Lewis Hamilton in the making, Dennis replies: "In the initial decisions that are taken at the early parts of their careers I have an involvement - but not to the extent where they start to mature. The exception has been with Lewis and with Nyck De Vries, who were both managed by me from a very young age.
"With Kevin I focused on the last category - the Formula Renault 3.5 series," he continues. "But the decision to take Kevin was mine. It was only possible to take Kevin because of my decision - that would be accurate. I took the decision because I felt that we needed to see if he could meet the expectations of our engineers, and so far he has done a great job. And also Stoffel Vandoorne did a great job last weekend in Bahrain, so I think he will be highly desirable by the end of the season."
And might we see another highly promising youngster, Stoffel Vandoorne, partnering the Dane in 2015? "Anything is possible," Dennis admits, "but Jenson is doing a great job. He is quick and he is dedicated so there is no reason not to stay with Jenson from any perspective. But we still have a whole season to go..."
So what are the realistic aims in 2014?
"I think we could win races in the later part of the season," he replies. "I want to see a linear progression because we must end the season winning. This has to be our objective. We can't win today. The fact is that F1 is less cyclical as a sport. We used to have a very clear winter closure - now it's continuous. So if we don't have the luxury of some regulation changes, we have to be competitive as soon as possible this year- and we will be!"
Despite the team's decline, Dennis' decision to return to the tiller took many by surprise however, he admits that the decision wasn't entirely to do with the lack of results.
"It was a very personal decision," he says. "I can understand people interpret my decision in different ways, but I suppose the real turning point was when, after two months of being in a non-executive position, I realised all the things that my friends were doing: playing golf, fishing, sailing - all these things which I was able to do - I realised that the thing that I wanted to do more than anything else was work. I very much enjoy work, I very much enjoy Formula One - but I also feel I have unfinished business in the overall strategy for the future of the group."
Other than the desire to see his team winning again, isn't part of his motivation fuelled by sheer adrenalin?
"We need to be driven," he admits, "and you have to find ways to drive yourself, and of course there's adrenalin involved. But adrenalin is a very short-lived experience, not a long-term effect. You have to be motivated by your thoughts, by your ambition. I will die ambitious. I will never lose my ambition and my drive.
"Could I live without motorsport? Definitely. But right now I have chosen to embrace the challenge of guiding, moulding and creating the McLaren of the future. I know I will be judged and my biggest fear is always failure - and I don't want to fail. I don't intend to. And it won't be through lack of effort if I don't achieve the perfection I am looking for. I am a perfectionist and I drive myself harder than anybody in the company. If they can't keep up with this 'mature' man then they must accept the consequences."
Chris Balfe