“Ayrton, we’ve decided to forget the Rio test. We’ll shake the new cars down at Silverstone instead, on Thursday and Friday of this week…” Ron Dennis let the words hang in the air, and with a broad grin listened for the world champion’s response across the 5000-mile telephone link separating Rio from McLaren International’s Woking headquarters. Cupping the palm of his hand over the mouthpiece, he whispered, “He’s not quite sure if I mean it”.
One thing’s almost certain: most of the opposition would indeed be delighted if McLaren’s managing director hadn’t been joking. They would have liked the new MP4/5-Honda to go to Silverstone – and stay there right through the forthcoming Easter weekend. Ever since 1984, when the definitive McLaren-TAG burst victoriously onto the scene in Rio, there have been few teams whose new grand prix cars have been awaited with such a feeling of overwhelming apprehension on the part of their rivals.
But, I tried to suggest, perhaps things are going to be different this year. I mean, as many people have hinted with glee, all’s not been smooth with the progress of the new car, has it? Problems with the new transverse gearbox at Monza? Anyway, why is it so late?
Dennis fixed the interviewer with a world-weary stare before reiterating a strand of home-spun McLaren philosophy. “You probably don’t know this, but the Friday before last, everyone at McLaren went home at 4:30 in the afternoon…” My face must have betrayed my ignorance. What point was he trying to make?
“You may find it hard to believe,” he continued, “but we’re trying to make McLaren International operate like a normal company. By that, I mean we’re deliberately trying to resist slipping into the ‘well let’s work all the hours God made’ approach because that way all you end up with is a totally exhausted workforce.
“You don’t get much more productivity if you try to work everybody from seven in the morning until 10 at night – and you get a lot less working round the clock. So even if you’re up against it, the laws of diminishing returns apply.”
Put simply, what Dennis and his colleagues are attempting to do is even out the inevitable troughs and peaks attendant on the practical operation of a grand prix team. Probably the most crucial – and cyclical – aspect of the whole F1 business is the amount of effort which needs to be extracted from the actual production capability of any such organisation.
“We request our staff to produce degrees of effort that are impossible to sustain for a lengthy period,” he explains, “so even though we’ve been in a tight situation with the new car, our people have always been having their Sundays off. OK, for the last two or three days before the cars are freighted to Rio this might not be the case, but even then they probably won’t be far short of their normal times.
“I can hear some people saying, ‘Well, crikey, if you’d have all worked all hours, you could have got the cars and all the spares out of Rio for the final test’. But my response to that would be that we’re not just gearing ourselves for the Brazilian GP. This is about going through the whole season with a continuous level of commitment and motivation. That’s what we’re aiming for.”
Dennis argues that, in effect, the new car is not late at all, making the point that the MP4/5 should be a well-tried, and therefore hopefully reliable, mechanical package from the moment it rolls out into the pitlane at the Autodromo Nelson Piquet.
“Every other factor on it will be fully proven, either because it’s a development of some component that has existed before, or it has been evaluated and tested on our two development cars,” he insists briskly.
The overall benefit accruing to the team’s effort from the intensive winter V10 test programme is something that simply cannot be underestimated.
"What happened to McLaren in 1988 has no relevance at all to McLaren in 1989 as regards the expectations of the people involved" Ron Dennis
“People tend to forget that, between the MP4/4 and the definitive new car, we’ve built two new test cars which have allowed us to do an enormous amount of evaluation and development of both the engine and chassis components,” he says with quiet satisfaction. “By the time we get out onto the starting grid the only thing left will be to ask, ‘Have we put it together right?’
“Admittedly, the MP4/5 has an aerodynamic package that wasn’t on the test car, but that’s simply because we didn’t want people to see what we’d got until the first race. So, if other teams claim that their cars were running a fortnight ago, we can effectively – and accurately – reply, ‘We’ve been running our equivalent of your car for the past six months’. It’s what you end up with in Brazil that really counts…”
The McLaren team feels quietly confident about its new machine, but one is bound to wonder whether there isn’t a sense of over-expectancy, inevitably bred out of 15 wins in 16 races last season. Did he feel that the workforce would be bitterly disappointed if, say, they could ‘only’ win between 10 and 12 races this season?
“Absolutely not,” he fires back firmly. “Not at all. Everybody here knows the philosophy of the company and fully understands that last year was an unusual situation for a variety of reasons and this year’s situation is a clean sheet of paper.”
However, he quickly throws a cold water shower of reality over those over-optimistic teams who believe that everybody starts equal with the advent of the naturally aspirated era.
“It is just ridiculous to suggest that everybody is starting from the same point in Brazil on Sunday. It’s not the case at all, and those people who believe that are in for a shock. The point I’m making is that what happened to McLaren in 1988 has no relevance at all to McLaren in 1989 as regards the expectations of the people involved.”
So who catches the eye when he scans the horizon for potential opposition in 1989? A lengthy pause follows as Ron considers the question in detail.
Approvingly, he reminds me that things might be about to look up at Ferrari in the wake of Cesare Fiorio’s appointment as successor to Pier-Giorgio Cappelli. Dennis has a keen appreciation that Fiat has the resources which, if marshalled correctly, could get Maranello firmly back on the competitive track.
“Having said that, though, its current efforts to wrestle with all its problems are effectively minimising its effectiveness as a GP team,” he concludes. “It’s a long way from what it needs to be. It knows it, we know it, the world knows it. So I can’t see it, in the initial part of the season, being much of a threat.”
In Ron’s view, it’s the Williams-Renault combination that needs watching. He grins: “I think it will start the season in perhaps better shape than it claims it is at the present time. If it’s trying to fool us, all I can say is that we’re certainly under no illusions about the fact that it’ll be going into the first race with a very well-sorted car. We just hope our chassis and engine will be better.
“In that respect, I believe we’re going to Brazil having done the best possible job we can. Taking reliability out of the equation, if we don’t succeed, then I won’t look back and say our team didn’t do the best possible job.
“But as far as the other teams are concerned, I’m not too worried about any others – at least, not on a continuously consistent basis.”
Throughout the off-season there have been rumours circulating about the intense discussion and debate, particularly in FOCA meetings, over the interpretation and application of the current F1 technical regulations concerning footwell specification. In essence, some people have been getting away with a liberal interpretation of the rule which demands box sections extending the length of the monocoque right through to the bulkhead in front of the driver’s feet.
Word has it that McLaren, on the receiving end of what Dennis clearly regards as nit-picking ‘over scrutineering’ throughout 1988, seems unlikely to take an over-indulgent attitude to such people next season.
"If people have a problem in this business, they should be up-front about it. Let me make it clear; McLaren is not putting itself up as whiter than white, but if there’s an edge to have, then we’ll take it" Ron Dennis
Again, Dennis picked his words scrupulously: “I don’t think, in fact, that there is any controversy over the regulations. We feel, as a team, that the rules should be applied equally to all competitors, irrespective of where they finish a race. So if a car that finishes ninth is illegal in some area, it should be identified as such and lose its ninth place. Nobody should be given an automatic licence not to comply with the regulations just because, say, they are making up numbers at the back of the grid.”
He then reflected back on McLaren’s experiences in 1988: “The fact is that cars which find themselves in the winner’s circle regularly are doubly scrutineered, but when, let’s say, an outsider finds itself in the winner’s circle, some people seem to think that this is so refreshing that the same degree of thoroughness is not applied to its scrutiny.”
He paused. “There were times last year when, in McLaren’s opinion and with our knowledge, some cars were running illegally. Now, there were certain elements of those cars which we felt were grey enough to require a reinforcement to the rules last November – early enough to make sure that everybody built their 1989 cars fully to comply with the regulations.”
Basically, Dennis thinks the whole business smacks of double standards, a viewpoint made all the more acute by what he regards as the somewhat devious manner in which ‘complaints’ about last year’s MP4/4 were voiced by one or two rival teams.
“The professional teams will usually come along and say, ‘Look, we don’t believe this is right, and if you don’t do something about it, we’ll perhaps have to protest you’. That’s in contrast to those who sneak round, whinging and moaning to the officials, the sort of objections that were reflected in the number of times we had to empty and refill our cars last season, as well as removing and refitting the fuel bag itself.
“If people have a problem in this business, they should be up-front about it. Let me make it clear; McLaren is not putting itself up as whiter than white, but if there’s an edge to have, then we’ll take it. But McLaren believes that its cars comply with the regulations all the time – and knows that some other people’s do not.”
However much Dennis may be annoyed by this petty pitlane bickering, his support for F1 is complete and unequivocal. And no matter what you might hear in other areas about there being plans afoot to switch the spotlight onto other major international categories, the McLaren boss remains utterly convinced of F1’s assured future as the sport’s absolute pinnacle.
“And I honestly don’t believe there is anybody in motorsport who, hand on heart, believes otherwise,” he says firmly. Moreover, he is specially critical of the line taken by Daimler-Benz AG director Jurgen Hubbert, who sought to justify the Mercedes decision against F1. Hubbert stated that Mercedes is staying in Group C because that’s where they can compete with other manufacturers – “and I’m not talking about manufacturers of cigarettes and sausages”.
“I must say that I took great exception to that remark,” Ron responds coldly. “The financing of a GP team has absolutely nothing to do with the technology or technological challenge that’s reflected in F1, or indeed is required to succeed in F1.
“I think that the Mercedes decision which was portrayed in the media was a decision taken and then subsequently justified. I don’t think the logic preceding the decision was necessarily reflected in the statements that were made after that decision was taken.”
Dennis has nothing further to say on that specific point, but it is easy to reach the conclusion voiced by several of the McLaren team’s rivals: namely, Mercedes opted to stay in Group C simply because it couldn’t find a strong enough partner to form with in F1. Once it had made that decision, it was left with the task of having to explain it.
“I don’t know what [Sauber-Mercedes Group C sponsor] AEG makes, other than dishwashers, washing machines or oven grills, but I don’t see any difference at all between a Group C racing programme being funded by a dishwasher and grill maker and the worldwide institutions that fund the engineering efforts of the GP teams.”
Pause. “The fact is that it makes strong commercial sense to advertise a consumer product through motorsport themes. There’s nothing wrong with AEG, just as there’s nothing wrong with the people who use F1, and I believe Mercedes was wrong to make those veiled criticisms.”
At the recent Geneva Motor Show, Dennis referred to a future structuring of the company, hinting at exciting new plans. Pressed to elaborate, he steadfastly refuses to give anything away, yet merely admits that sustaining McLaren International as a competitive GP-winning force will remain the very highest priority in years to come.
“I think in the future you will see me spending more time running the company in a management role,” he admits, adding somewhat enigmatically. “Much as I would love to do other things, I have to be disciplined and this is the best place for me to apply what expertise I have.”
Meanwhile, McLaren International stands on the verge of yet another season as the perceived man to beat, the team everybody else would love to topple from its pedestal. The team with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost on its driving strength. What about those two, then? How will they get on?
"It’s not the competition that exists at present, but what might exist in the future, that really worries me" Ron Dennis
The slightly pained smile surfaces again. “I think both of them will be slightly different,” he replies, “in the sense that they’ll move slightly towards each other…” Smartly, I try interjecting, “What, you mean like at Estoril?”
Another schoolmasterly frown. “They’ll move towards each other in the sense that Alain will be slightly more intense and committed, while Ayrton will ease up on his intensity, without losing any of his commitment. That will make for a better ambience…”
Obviously, the level of success enjoyed by McLaren International over the season past doesn’t come easily. But if Ron Dennis had to pinpoint one single area which marked out the team as different from its rivals, what aspect would he nominate?
The ensuing pause was of a duration calculated to make me wonder if he was dozing off. “Strategic forward planning,” was his reply. Could he elaborate? “People in this business tend to define good fortune as being in the right place at the right time. I don’t agree. I think you have to have a strategy specifically directed towards landing on the square that’s going up the ladder and not down the snake.”
He left me with a remark which will most certainly send a chill down the spine of the opposition. “Our long-term aim is to raise the stake of the F1 game yet again,” he said firmly.
Put simply, as rivals get a foothold on McLaren’s current competitive level, Ron Dennis wants his team to be disappearing up onto the next ledge.
“We have to gear up to take on the competition, whatever is around,” he finishes thoughtfully. “It’s not the competition that exists at present, but what might exist in the future, that really worries me…”
