If not Ron , who takes the helm ?

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Originally Posted by Valve Bounce

Paul Stoddart

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God forbid!
I'll take 10xRon but no Stoddy, please! :D

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Originally Posted by ioan

God forbid!
I'll take 10xRon but no Stoddy, please! :D

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Common Guys!! This is the guy who gave Mark Webber his big chance in F1. Besides, nobody could ever suggest Paul of cheating - his cars never went fast enough for this to be a consideration. He just whinged and whined until he drove max crazy - and I see that as a positive. :p :

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Originally Posted by wedge

Obviously it's Martin Whitmarsh

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correct... It's a proven fact.. Ill even put my sig on the line for it..

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

In a nutshell , JV was driving a reynard truck that had wings falling off .
Richards screwed Pollock out of his seat and then Jacques out of his .
JV wasn't paid out of the team budget ever .

Honda eventually dumped the snake , but they'll not be on the phone to Mercedes to warn them . They did well to not get much of this mess on them , and won't want any e-mails or text messaging showing up any time soon .

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out of context but It's a combination of both.. look when you are graced with victory and a championship you expect big things in your next years but as soon as you come into a bit of a crap car it gets to you more and more.. JV was in his prime from I'd say 96-2001.. after that it went all down hill when you set big expectations for yourself and just continue to give poor results then it affects you mentally and youy start making mistakes yourself... THATS JV in a nutshell...

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

He did sign the apology .
He does sound like a main candidate , wedge .

Haug also has a foot in the door .

Both those guys , though , were there for this mess , so Richards may have the inside because he was outside .
He's also creditted by some , myself not included , as having cleaned house and turned BAR around .
And , he's just been left standing at the altar by the team , so one could assume he's done a little set-up of his own in regards to how to work with the team and car .


A while back I opined in jest that it was all a conspiracy , and the one responsible was Richards .
It was a joke , but maybe not one fetched as far as I thought .

He did say he wanted a team .
It has been curious that very little news was coming on progress of the new entry . The word was that they had no confirmation that they would be able to run , with challenges to customers already running in place .

Dave starting a new team would require a great deal of time to get together , whether one had a rolling chassis or not , and to leave it too late would risk a no-show or utter embarassment at the first races at least , and neither Merc or Dave wanted that .

Mid-field or better right out of the box would be the aim , and it's hard to see Merc even letting him get too far behind the 8-ball on this .

And , we know Ron has disappointed Merc with unreliability the last couple of years , and that driver management has been questioned heavily .


I didn't start this thread to slag Richards , and I hope I haven't opened too big a can of worms by doing so , but I see a pattern here . Richards had an easy time of swooping in on the seat at BAR , and , as I see it , whether good fortune , or devious planning , is well-placed to slide into Dennis's throne , if he is to leave .

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Why would Dave Richards move to McLaren, just because he has links for the customer deal that fell through? Whereas Whitmarsh has been Ron's right hand man for a number of years, groomed as a successor to Ron.

Ron built the McLaren Group to what it is today since he was a mechanic, similarly DR built Prodrive from the ground up and now has a stake in Aston Martin. I just can't see DR leaving Aston in the lurch after the recent buy out and Aston could really do with keeping him.

Sorry, but I just can't see DR taking over McLaren. McLaren is the most elitist team in F1 and usually that means they are a conservative organisation (usually but not always) and that usually means stability.

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Originally Posted by wedge

Why would Dave Richards move to McLaren, just because he has links for the customer deal that fell through? Whereas Whitmarsh has been Ron's right hand man for a number of years, groomed as a successor to Ron.

Ron built the McLaren Group to what it is today since he was a mechanic, similarly DR built Prodrive from the ground up and now has a stake in Aston Martin. I just can't see DR leaving Aston in the lurch after the recent buy out and Aston could really do with keeping him.

Sorry, but I just can't see DR taking over McLaren. McLaren is the most elitist team in F1 and usually that means they are a conservative organisation (usually but not always) and that usually means stability.

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It's all a bit academic at this point as I've seen Ron quoted as saying he aint goin' nowhere .
It's the weight of Mercedes that would factor highest in favouring Richards over Whitmarsh , as I see it .

Like I said though , Ron doesn't want to go , so , there you go .

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

It's all a bit academic at this point as I've seen Ron quoted as saying he aint goin' nowhere .
It's the weight of Mercedes that would factor highest in favouring Richards over Whitmarsh , as I see it .

Like I said though , Ron doesn't want to go , so , there you go .

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Why would Mercedes want Richards? Why would Richards want McLaren? He owns and runs his own motorsport company Prodrive which is as much part of his identity as McLaren is for Dennis.

If Dennis goes I suspect Mercedes will buy his stake or share ownership with the Bahraini consortium that recently bought into the team. They'd probably appoint Haug to nominally head the team with someone like Whitmarsh doing the actual management.

I want Ron to stay, although I'm not sure if that's because I want him to rise from the ashes and make McLaren into the team he claims he had, or I want to watch his smug face squirm while it all falls down around his ears.

For the good of the sport I hope he does the former.

It's Whitmarsh. 100%, no ifs ands or buts. It's Whitmarsh. Dennis has already ceded some of his authority and responsibilites to Whitmarsh. When Dennis retires the only thing that will change at McLaren is that we will no longer be graced with "Ronspeak".

For argument's sake, if we remove Whitmarsh then Haug would be the next in line I think. It would probably only be a short term thing though.

Of thing I am certain. The next McLaren F1 boss will come from within. There is no way in hell that an outsider will come in and run the House that Ron Built. Ron will be in his dottage before someone like Richards takes over McLaren.

I think its rather rude the way Dennis is being treated as of late. In regards to the spy saga he did what I feel is a commendable job. Yes, some say he could have gone about it in a way which would have resulted in something far less then what we had this year, but come on his best intentions were always there. He did what he thought was best for all given the circumstances at the time, but obviously looking back on it there was a slightly better way of going about it. We all can do that though, look back on certain situations and wish we did it a different way. Its human nature, no one is perfect.

Im sorry to all you Brits out there but the British media are the biggest bunch of tossers out there. They overhype their sportsman, and feed it to the world and are very good at kicking their own people in the guts when they are down. Dennis has no option but to quit? That is one of the stupidest things I have heard. I just don't understand the British media though. RD has done so much for motorsport on a worldwide level and also in Britain and they are calling for his head after the whole spy saga? Its good to see gratitude is still existant within society.

I just find it funny that 12 weeks ago the media were hyping Lewis Hamilton (and justifyable, but not the extent of verbal masturbation like they did) as the next big thing in Formula 1 and now are attacking RD like this. Im sorry but if there was no RD then I doubt Lewis Hamilton would be as common name as it is, you can't argue it.

I don't know, give the guy a break. He is only human, I think thats something that people sometimes fail to recognise. RD is representing New Zealands only affiliation with Formula 1 , so I'm of course always going to be supporting him