McLaren boss Ron Dennis has spoken out about the importance of loyalty in the wake of the departure of Lewis Hamilton to Mercedes and the ongoing discussions with technical director Paddy Lowe over his mooted move the same way. Speaking to the Financial Times’ Roger Blitz, Dennis said that loyalty has always been a first order priority in his organisation, “You cut yourself, you bleed McLaren,” he said. “We’re about winning, we care about how we win . . . We want to win with the right principles, the right values. If people don’t want to be part of that and want to go More…

The McLaren Group has announced a new branch of its company, McLaren Animation. The new venture is aimed at bringing a more accessible front to McLaren as well as stimulating increased brand loyalty; as is apparent in the company’s first production – ‘Tooned’. McLaren Animation has set up an alliance with Oscar-winning animation studio Framestore – whose recent projects have included the film War Horse and the BBC’s Euro 2012 title sequence – to create ‘Tooned’, a new show featuring the voices of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button as themselves as well as Alexander Armstrong, who will voice Professor M. More…

Ron Dennis has emerged from the shadows into which he retreated last season after the Melbourne lie-gate scandal. And he has some strong things to say about what he considers unfair treatment at the hands of peers and particularly, without naming him, former FIA president Max Mosley. He also talks about his obsessive behaviour and his new life as a man about town in London. The main thrust of what he has to say regarding the reasons behind his exile from F1, after 30 years of pursuing greatness, is the fact that he feels he has paid a very high More…

Interested to note that overnight Ron Dennis has made some comments which show that the top teams are shifting their view of the severity of the situation in F1 and the need for drastic action. Up to now they have been very resistant to the idea of talking percentages or numbers in terms of how much budgets might be brought down. But last night Ron said, “I think the top teams will manage to reduce their costs from between 10 and 50 per cent. But for the smaller teams it will be more dramatic, to the order of 30 to More…