Ron Dennis
Ron talks about his experiences driving for McLaren

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I had my first car when I was eighteen. My youth was, of course, heavily influenced by motor racing. I went to my first Grand Prix in 1966 and I think at twenty-one I had an E-type Jaguar, which was a tremendous status symbol at that time. I was - for a young person - obviously earning very, very good money and saving a lot because I travelled so much at other people’s expense. At that time I was working for Cooper’s Racing Car Company and then I moved to Brabham. Then I formed my own companies but, throughout that period I was, compared to my peers, well paid.

Grand Prix teams were very small groups of people then. Brabham’s was competing with Denny Hulme at that stage. The whole team was five people, so someone coming in prepared to make the tea and clean up was a welcome asset to them because it was one less task that they had to do.

I always liken it to a very nice house, and the only people that went through the front door of the house were drivers and managers - who were normally former drivers - and the only other occupants of the house were those people that made it happen physically, and so I sort of climbed in the back window of Grand Prix racing, at a very, very young age. When I went to my first Grand Prix I was at least ten, maybe fifteen years, younger than anybody else and that was just because an opportunity presented itself.

I was working all weekends and the holidays at Brabham’s in Weybridge, not being paid, and really my enthusiasm for the subject and my knowledge of the subject increased very quickly because of the amount of time I spent on it. Then I managed to get a job at Cooper Racing Cars in 1965 and quickly went from the production processes where we were assembling lower category Formula cars - Formula 3s, Formula 2s. An opportunity presented itself when Cooper’s decided to run a third car at the last Grand Prix of the season, which was Mexico City, and so, at a very young age, I was off to Mexico. I’d never sat on an aeroplane let alone flown all the way to Mexico City.

Well I got in there through pester power. It was literally sweeping the floor, making tea, cleaning things, preparing things to be painted. And generally I’ve always had high standards. Whether it was a model aircraft or anything I was doing at home, I wanted to achieve high standards with it. And it was just that sort of attention to detail and commitment to trying to do things well that, I think, shone through even at a young age, and they were values that stood me in good stead.

The co-owner of Brabham’s, who was really the power behind Brabham’s - he was the designer, the manufacturer of their cars, a guy called Ron Tauranac, who lived in Old Woking Road - he really put a lot of trust in myself and my partner Neil Trundle, and loaned us two cars for a season and spare parts, all basically on sale or return at a very favourable price. I hire-purchased a racing truck, I hire-purchased some racing engines and then found drivers to pay to drive the cars and that’s how it all started. Ultimately, the facilities that I built or that I was using were based in Woking, although my first foray was based in Cranleigh (and then from Cranleigh to Windsor). Ultimately we came back to Woking. And it was in very small facilities in Poole Road that we conceptualised the first carbon fibre Formula 1 car, and we used that car as the leverage to buy into McLaren, ultimately 50%. Then, after two years, we took control. In that period we’d moved McLaren to a factory in Boundary Road. From there we moved to Woking Business Park and then, subsequently in 2004, here to The Technology Centre. But, of course, there’s been some very severe changes and we’re quite a significantly different animal now to how we were several years ago.

The big change for me came in my early twenties when I fell asleep at the wheel of my E-type. Whilst I was stationary at the time - I was at some traffic lights - and then, from what witnesses saw someone tooted behind and I subconsciously drove across the road, diagonally, into a lamp-post. That put me in hospital for quite a while and, because I damaged my eyes, when I left hospital I couldn’t do anything physical for a couple of months because anything physical you do puts pressure on your eyes, which is not good for the recovery process. So I managed the team. We employed another mechanic and I managed the team and really, from that moment on, I never did anything other than manage, so really I haven’t worked with my hands since my early twenties.

The financial control was always with us. It’s just the difference between owning the shop and having shop assistants or being the shop assistant and the owner. It was the same thing. It’s always key to have financial control of your business affairs but, of course, they were somewhat more simplistic then than they are today.

I could never understand why any human wanted to spend what was then nearly three hours of their day getting to and from their business. I think you’ll find a good 90% of the people that work for the company now live within a very small radius of this facility. It creates a very dedicated and loyal workforce and it’s one of the ingredients of the success of McLaren.