The future of Ron Dennis – one of Formula One’s most dominating figures – was the subject of intense speculation on Friday night with reports that a consortium of Chinese investors had tabled a £1.65bn takeover bid for his McLaren team.
Dennis, chairman and chief executive of the McLaren Group, owns 25% of the business, with another 25% owned by his business partner Mansour Ojjeh, with the remaining 50% owned by a Bahraini sovereign wealth fund.
According to Sky News, Dennis presented the offer for McLaren last week, with fellow shareholders launching a plot to remove him as chief executive. According to Sky sources, Dennis appeared in the high court on Thursday and Friday in an attempt to get an injunction against a move to place him on gardening leave until the end of his contract in mid-January.
McLaren were thought to be holding an emergency board meeting on Friday to deal with the situation.
Dennis, 69, who has a 35-year association with the company, built McLaren’s F1 team up to be the strongest in the world, with former champions including Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, James Hunt, Niki Lauda and Lewis Hamilton. But with other major figures, including the sport’s CEO, Bernie Ecclestone, and Frank Williams thought to be approaching the last phase of their involvement with the sport, F1 could be entering a new epoch under its new owners, Liberty Media.
When contacted by The Guardian on Friday night McLaren would not comment.
