Ron Dennis - Early Life

Early Life

Born and raised in Woking, England, Dennis began working for the Cooper Formula One team in 1966 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. 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 a backer (Motul) to fund a Rondel F2 car. For 1974, a Ray Jessop-designed F1 car was planned but the energy crisis affected racing severely and the car was completed by other hands and raced as the Token and later the Safir.

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 the late 1970s, Dennis founded Project Four. 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's Project Four operation. Effectively a reverse takeover, it heralded the arrival of the rebranded McLaren International operation and ultimately placed the thirty-four year old in full control of the outfit. 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). The numbering system has been retained until the present time (the 2012 car is known as the McLaren MP4-27). After the change of title sponsor in 1997, the same abbreviation was retained, with the 'M' now standing for McLaren.