Roaring Ahead

McLaren is confident of racing into the future without its influential former boss.

- Ian De Cotta

For 37 years after taking over the F1 motor racing team in 1980, Ron Dennis moulded McLaren into one of the most successful and richest in the sport, valued at £850 million a year (S$1.4 billion). McLaren Automotive, the company he later founded in 2010, is today among the world’s top supercar makers. Then, last November, he relinquished his role as chairman and CEO after a boardroom battle with key shareholders. So, now what?

Sitting in the lounge of the Fullerton Bay Hotel on the second day of the Singapore Grand Prix in September, Mike Flewitt (pictured above), the CEO of McLaren Automotive, says with a smile: “Without a doubt, Ron is the most influential person in our history, but from an automotive point of view, it has not been a sudden change because from January 2013, he stood back and became non-executive chairman.”