Tag Archives: Ron Dennis

McLaren F1 – An Omni-Shambles?

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York as Logan 5, with blinking red lifeclock i...

Logan 5 watches another McLaren pit stop go wrong. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  

After the Chinese and Bahrain double header, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton might be forgiven for launching into a few Malcolm Tucker of The Thick of It style, expletive laden, tirades. 

This post is not intended as further criticism of the Team’s unfortunate right rear gun-man.  Almost every TV show I’ve seen over the past couple of decades, with the possible exception of the Antiques Road Show and Songs of Praise, has at some stage run a Formula 1 pit stop demonstration.  Despite this, I still have not the slightest inkling of what it must be like to be a member of an F1 pit crew in the heat of a Grand Prix.  No, the McLaren Team’s problems run much, much deeper than a few fumbled tyre changes. 

Whilst other teams might wax and wane, McLaren, along with Ferrari, is accepted as one of the Formula One royalty.  Yet, the bare facts are that the McLaren Team hasn’t won a constructers championship since 1998 and has secured just one driver’s title since 2000, and then only by the skin of a Toyota’s Bridgestones.  A significant chunk of this period was, of course, the Schumacher and Ferrari era of dominance.  However, lesser resourced teams such as Renault, Brawn and Red Bull have all secured multiple titles in recent years.

Where is the flaw in the Woking Team’s world?  The fault can hardly rest with the drivers.  Of the 6 current or former World Champions on the present F1 grid, 4 have driven for McLaren during the past decade.  The Team can’t be criticised for its engineering ability or willingness to innovate – just look at the F-duct and the turn-around in their 2009 season.  McLaren doesn’t lack first class facilities – the McLaren Technology Centre and circuit Brand Centre are testaments to Ron Dennis’ unbending commitment to efficiency, presentation and silver paint

 

McLaren is like one of those futuristic utopias in a 1970s science fiction film.  On the surface, all is gleaming perfection, but underneath there is a rotting flaw waiting to undermine the whole edifice.  McLaren is the Logan’s Run of Formula 1.

What all the teams that have succeeded over the past decade have had – whether Ferrari, Renault, Brawn or Red Bull – is a clear philosophy running through from the design to the race tactics.  That may also be the case with McLaren, but it isn’t so obvious to see.

For the sake of a good 2012 season, I hope that McLaren can sort out the problems they have experienced so far this year, post-Melbourne.  If not, they are likely to face some significant criticism.  An attractive car and some funny Vodaphone adverts will only carry good will so far.

FORMULA ONE MUM

VETTEL VS KARTIKEYAN – AN UNEQUAL CONFLICT

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Cucumber Castle

Cucumber Castle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the old saying goes, if you tangle with an HRT you’ll end up looking like a Marussia.

I have nothing but respect for Sebastian Vettel’s talent and achievements, but you have to wonder at the wisdom of him engaging in verbal jousting with Narain Karthikeyan.    Vettel might consider the Indian make-weight to be a “cucumber” following their Malaysian contretemps, but the World Champion is beginning to look like a prize turnip.

For the leading drivers, the likes of HRT are usually of no consequence, they are in a different race, if you could even call it that.  They are just the blur that you whiz past against a background of waved blue flags.  However, where the back and the front of the grid do come together, literally, history usually suggests that the best advice for the leading driver is to walk away and preserve his dignity.

Here are some “don’ts” for drivers at the sharp end who find themselves blunted by a slow coach:

Don’t threaten to end the other driver’s career.  Ron Dennis and Norbert Haug didn’t follow this advice after Enrique Bernoldi’s Arrows legitimately held up David Coulthard’s McLaren for lap after lap in the 2001 Monaco GP.  If a driver is no good he’ll disappear soon enough with no outside assistance from the likes of Dennis or Hough.  If he is any good he might just come back to bite you.

Don’t gesture to show your displeasure.  Andrea De Cesaris was leading the Long Beach GP in 1982 when he was held up by Raul Boesel’s March.  In the time it took him to shake his fist he missed a gear and Niki Lauda’s McLaren slipped past to win the race.

Don’t bring photographic proof of the other driver’s guilt to the next race.  Jarno Trulli did this following his crash with Adrian Sutil at the Spanish GP in 2009, achieving nothing but a big bill from the photo developers.

Finally, and most importantly, don’t leap out of your car and start trying to perform prostate surgery on the other driver using your racing boots.  It certainly didn’t add much to the prestige of his role as World Champion when Nelson Piquet set about the hapless Eliseo Salazar when a failed  attempt to lap the Chilean at the 1982 German GP resulted in both cars ending up in the tyre wall.

It’s much better to follow the example of Jenson Button, who owned up to his own crash with Karthikeyan, or Ayrton Senna.  At the Italian Grand prix in 1988, McLaren’s perfect record of victories was destroyed when the Brazilian tripped over one-hit blunder Jean-Louis Schlesser’s Williams.  After the race, when a tearful Schlesser apologised, Senna reportedly accepted it with good grace, although I doubt that Ron Dennis was quite so sanguine.

FORMULA ONE MUM