Sir Ronald Dennis (born 1 June 1947) is a British businessman and motorsport executive. From 1981 to 2009, Dennis served as team principal, CEO and co-owner of McLaren in Formula One, winning seven World Constructors' Championship titles between 1984 and 1998; he also served as founder, chairman and owner of McLaren Group between 1985 and 2017, where he founded McLaren Automotive in 2010.
Dennis started his career as a mechanic, before starting successful junior formulae teams Rondel Racing and then Project Four Racing, which took over the management of the McLaren team in 1980. Between 1981 and 2009, Dennis was the team principal of the McLaren Formula One team, and was instrumental in transforming the outfit into a regular world championship contender. Constructors' and drivers' world championships were won with Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and Lewis Hamilton.
Dennis founded McLaren Cars—later known as McLaren Automotive—in 1985, producing flagship supercars such as the F1 (1992), SLR (2003, in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz) and P1 (2013). Aside from McLaren Group, he is also one of six British business persons to be an official British Business Ambassador for advanced engineering and manufacturing. Dennis is also a main trustee for Tommy's, a miscarriage help charity. He is the Global Consultant for the state-owned China Minsheng Investment Group, the chairman for the UK Summit, and also former owner of Absolute Taste. With interests in foreign trade, Dennis also became Chairman of the British East Asian Council in 2014. Before the merger with LVMH, Dennis was a major shareholder in the luxury watch maker TAG Heuer, along with his business partner, Mansour Ojjeh.
Dennis was born and raised in Woking, England, and studied motor vehicle engineering at Guildford Technical College. He began working for the Cooper Formula One team in 1966 as a mechanic at the age of 18 where he worked alongside lead driver Jochen Rindt. In 1968 Rindt moved to Brabham and took Dennis with him. For the 1969 season Rindt moved to Team Lotus; however, Dennis stayed on, choosing instead to work for Sir Jack Brabham.
When Brabham chose retirement in 1971, Dennis and his colleague Neil Trundle decided to start their own team. In 1971, Rondel Racing was founded in Dennis's native Woking. Money was at a premium though and Dennis was trying to find sponsorship. Through Ron's then girlfriend, who was the daughter of John Phelps, director of Phelps Antique Furniture in Twickenham, one of its regular customers Tony Vlassopulos, a barrister son of a Greek shipowner, was asked to sponsor Rondel.
Vlassopulos asked his friend Ken Grob, chairman of Alexander Howden, insurance brokers in London if he was interested in joining in. Grob said yes on the proviso that his young son Ian Grob could be part of the team, which was agreed. From that moment forward, Vlassopulos became Dennis' first sponsor.
By the mid-1970s the team was enjoying considerable success in Formula Two. Rondel aspired to be more than a customer team, however, and Dennis soon managed to find an additional backer to Grob and Vlassopulos in Motul, to help fund a Rondel F1 car. For 1974, a Ray Jessop-designed F1 car was planned but the energy crisis affected Motul's backing. Ultimately Dennis was unable to obtain sufficient funds to support the F1 venture, so Trundle continued with the Jessop-designed car while Vlassopulos and Grob took over ownership of the team, renamed Token Racing.
Dennis regrouped, forming a Marlboro-backed F2 team for two talented and well-sponsored drivers from Ecuador. In 1975 Dennis founded the Project Three team, and his cars once again became race winners. In 1976 Dennis founded Project Four Racing. This team went on to great success in Formula 2 and Formula 3, winning championships in 1979 and 1980 with Philip Morris (Marlboro) backing. Project Four also participated in the build programme for Procar BMW M1 racing cars. As his business interests became increasingly successful and lucrative, Dennis aspired to return to Formula One, hiring talented designer John Barnard to spearhead the design and development of an innovative new F1 car.
Dennis's return to Formula One was well-timed. The recent poor performance of the former world championship-winning McLaren team had prompted Philip Morris executive John Hogan to initiate a takeover of the outfit by Dennis' Project Four. Effectively a reverse takeover, the team was rebranded as McLaren International with Dennis in control. In addition to hiring Barnard to begin work on the team's revolutionary new carbon fibre composite chassis, the MP4/1, Dennis also successfully recruited the Porsche automobile firm to build the cars' engines from 1984-87.
The 'MP4' designation originally stood for Marlboro Project Four (the MP4/1 design was complete before the merger). After the change of title sponsor in 1997, the same abbreviation was retained, with the 'M' now standing for McLaren. The numbering system was retained until 2017 when it was replaced with 'MCL' following Dennis' departure.
Prior to Dennis's arrival at McLaren in September 1980, the team was going through a particularly uncompetitive stint. The team had last won a grand prix with then defending World Champion James Hunt in 1977 and had finished a lowly ninth in the 1980 constructors' championship with John Watson and Alain Prost. Even in those early days Dennis recognised the young Frenchman's potential but was unable to prevent him moving to the Renault team for 1981, a season that saw McLaren once again winning races. The year also saw many other teams struggling to duplicate Barnard's revolutionary carbon-fibre chassis.
In 1981 Dennis and his business partners bought out the other McLaren shareholders, Teddy Mayer and Tyler Alexander. In 1983 Dennis persuaded then-Williams backer Mansour Ojjeh to become a partner in McLaren International. Ojjeh invested in Porsche-built turbocharged engines which carried the name of his company, Techniques d'Avant Garde (TAG).
Dennis then persuaded the retired Niki Lauda to return to Formula One for the 1982 season and at the season opening South African Grand Prix the double World Champion lined up alongside Watson at the start of the season (only after an F1 drivers strike was averted). By the end of the year both drivers had secured two victories and 1983 began with more success with Watson's win in Long Beach. No more victories followed that year but Lauda debuted the Porsche-powered MP4-1E interim chassis at that season's Dutch Grand Prix. By the following race, the Italian Grand Prix, both cars were powered by turbocharged engines: McLaren-Ford had become McLaren-TAG. Convinced by his initial investment, Ojjeh became the major investor in McLaren, taking 60 percent of the shares. By the end of the year, Alain Prost, who had finished second in the 1983 Drivers' Championship with Renault but was fired after publicly criticising the team following the loss of both the Drivers' and Constructors Championships, had been signed to replace Watson. With the experienced Lauda at his side, everything was set for a title challenge in 1984.
In just four years Dennis had turned McLaren from an also-ran team into a front-runner and in 1984, with Barnard's revolutionary MP4/2 car his work was rewarded with 12 wins from 16 races and both drivers' and constructors' titles. Lauda took the drivers' crown by a half-point from his McLaren teammate Prost, with both drivers scoring more than double the tally of the third-placed Elio de Angelis. While neither Lauda nor Prost were the fastest combination of the year, that title going to reigning World Champion Nelson Piquet in his BMW powered Brabham BT53 who claimed 9 pole positions, the McLaren-TAG's reliability was unmatched. As said by Clive James in commentary on the official video review of the Formula One season produced by FOCA: "Anything as fast as the McLarens fell apart, anything as reliable finished later." The following year the situation was reversed and Prost won his first World Championship while Lauda suffered multiple failures and only won one race. At his home race in Austria Lauda announced his permanent retirement from Formula One at the end of the season. McLaren finished eight points ahead of second placed Ferrari that year but the pack was closing and in 1986, McLaren lost out to Williams, although the consistent Prost won the drivers' title. Lauda's replacement was the 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, who also retired from Formula One at the end of the 1986 season.