Dennis in Process of Handing Over Team Management
Wednesday March 10th, 2004
By Roger Horton
McLaren team principal Ron Dennis has revealed that he is slowly removing himself from the running of his racing team and handing his responsabilities over to managing director Martin Whitmarsh.
56-year old Dennis, who became McLaren's boss in 1981, admitted the process of handing over the reins had already begun, but denied his team's recent lack of form had anything to do with him concentrating on the building of the new state of the art McLaren Technology Centre.
"The reality is that, yes, I was the person who controlled the whole MTC programme, but long before that my responsibilities in the racing team had been taken over by Martin Whitmarsh," Dennis told Atlas F1 in an exclusive interview. "And then people say, ah, that's it, he is not as good as you are.
"But my view on that - putting aside that I think he is extremely competent in his job - is that no individual can be around forever and I think the worst thing any manager can do is act like a light switch - one minute you are there, one minute you are not.
"You have to have overlap when you are trying to protect the grand values, the credibility and integrity of an organisation. It takes time, overlap takes time."
Read the entire interview in today's issue of Atlas F1.