LONDON— McLaren chief executive Ron Dennis relinquished all Formula One roles Thursday amid the fallout from a lying scandal that could lead to the team being banned from the world championship.
The 61-year-old Dennis’ resignation is part of a restructuring of the McLaren Group. He will become executive chairman of McLaren Automotive, a division that will launch a sports road car in 2011.
Martin Whitmarsh, who replaced Dennis as F1 team principal in January, will take on the CEO role and answer to the board on all F1 matters.
Dennis said the timing of his exit was “purely coincidental,” but acknowledged that FIA president Max Mosley and F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone would welcome his departure.
“I admit I’m not always easy to get on with,” Dennis said at McLaren headquarters in Woking near London. “I admit I’ve always fought hard for McLaren in Formula 1. I doubt if Max Mosley or Bernie Ecclestone will be displeased by my decision, but no one asked me to do it. It was my decision.
“Equally, I was the architect of today’s restructure of the McLaren Group. Again, no one asked me to do it. It was my decision.”
The announcement came with McLaren embroiled in one of the biggest crises in its 45-year existence. The British team has been summoned to F1’s ruling body in Paris on April 29 to face charges of bringing the sport into disrepute.
FIA said McLaren deliberately misled stewards at the Australian Grand Prix last month, lying to race officials that it had not given 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton instructions to let Toyota’s Jarno Trulli overtake him while the pair were behind the safety car.
Hamilton apologized, saying he was “instructed and misled” about evidence by McLaren sporting director Dave Ryan, who was fired after being blamed for masterminding the deception.
FIA said McLaren twice passed up opportunities to rectify evidence it knew was false in Melbourne. Hamilton was stripped of his third-place finish, but McLaren could face sanctions in Paris that include being banned.
Dennis bankrolled and mentored Hamilton as he rose from a karting protege to F1’s hottest property. But his relationship with Hamilton’s father and manager, Anthony, has deteriorated following the damage to his son’s reputation.
“Lewis and Anthony have been very supportive through what have been some difficult times,” Whitmarsh said Thursday at the Chinese Grand Prix. “They’ve been with the team a long time, and are committed to being with the team for a long time in the future.”
Dennis first became involved in F1 in 1996, working alongside driver Jochen Rindt at the Cooper Formula One team.
After stints at Brabham and projects in Formula Two and Three, Dennis returned to F1 in 1981 with McLaren and assumed full control of the company.
Despite retaining a 15 percent stake in the group, Dennis will have no executive authority over the main racing business.
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