Dennis ends involvement with McLaren F1
By ROB HARRIS,
AP Sports Writer
LONDON (AP) McLaren chief executive Ron Dennis relinquished all Formula One
roles Thursday amid the fallout from a lying scandal that could lead to the
team being banned from the world championship.
The 61-year-old Dennis's resignation is part of a restructuring of the
McLaren Group that will see him leading a new independent division that will
launch a sports road car in 2011.
Martin Whitmarsh, who replaced Dennis as F1 team principal in January, will
now take on his CEO role and answer to the board on all F1 matters.
The announcement came with McLaren embroiled in one of the biggest crises in
its 45-year existence.
The British team has been summoned to F1's ruling body in Paris on April 28
to face charges of bringing the sport into disrepute.
FIA said McLaren deliberately misled stewards at the Australian Grand Prix
last month, lying to race officials that it had not given 2008 world champion
Lewis Hamilton instructions to let Toyota's Jarno Trulli overtake while the
pair were behind the safety car.
Dennis said the timing of his exit was "purely coincidental," but
acknowledged that FIA president Max Mosley and F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone
would welcome his departure.
"I admit I'm not always easy to get on with," Dennis said at McLaren
headquarters in Woking near London. "I admit I've always fought hard for
McLaren in Formula 1. I doubt if Max Mosley or Bernie Ecclestone will be
displeased by my decision, but no one asked me to do it. It was my decision
"Equally, I was the architect of today's restructure of the McLaren Group.
Again, no one asked me to do it. It was my decision."
FIA said McLaren twice passed up opportunities to rectify evidence it knew
was false in Melbourne. Hamilton was stripped of his third-place finish, but
McLaren could face sanctions in Paris that include being banned from the
world championship.
Dennis first became involved in F1 at 18 in 1996, working alongside driver
Jochen Rindt at the Cooper Formula One team.
After stints at Brabham and projects in Formula Two and Three, the
34-year-old Dennis returned to F1 in 1981 with McLaren and assumed full
control of the company.
Dennis will now become executive chairman of McLaren Automotive and lead the
new sports car business.
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