{"id":108561,"date":"2025-09-02T06:53:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T06:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108561\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T06:53:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T06:53:17","slug":"embracing-sacrifice-was-secret-of-my-mclaren-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108561\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing sacrifice was secret of my McLaren success"},"content":{"rendered":"

The meeting room is lightly furnished and understated. He sits on a chair drawn slightly back from the table, as though to sprinkle informality on the conversation. This is stylish Mayfair in central London, not where he came from but it came to him because he was good at what he did. More than that. He was Ron Dennis, owner and boss of the hugely successful McLaren motor racing team for more than 30 years. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t ask how many grands prix his team won. As for drivers\u2019 championships and constructors\u2019 titles, let\u2019s not go there either. The short answer is plenty. He set out to be the best in the world. For a time he was. What you now have is a man two weeks short of his 78th birthday enjoying a different life. Asked whether he\u2019d like to talk about Formula 1 or contemporary art, he takes a nanosecond and tells you about his passion for art. And history. <\/p>\n

Eight years ago he sold his shares in McLaren Technology Group and McLaren Automotive for about \u00a3275million. He was 70 when he cashed in his chips and two years later The Sunday Times Rich List estimated his personal fortune at \u00a3450million. With that kind of money, was he not tempted by those sunny places for shady people? He laughs at the thought. <\/p>\n

\"Ron<\/p>\n

Dennis turned McLaren into a serial winner of F1 world titles when he was team principal between 1981 and 2009<\/p>\n

SUTTON\/EMPICS<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I am a passionate Brit. It would give you a good headline if I told you how much tax I\u2019d paid in my life. I\u2019m not going to because it would become the dominant thing in the story. I love our diverse weather. I have friends who tell me they are on a 90-day system, and they\u2019re sleeping in beds in a variety of places, Switzerland, Monte Carlo, Jersey, Guernsey, everywhere. I say, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just pay the tax here?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

When he left McLaren in 2017, it was reported that he\u2019d fallen out with fellow shareholders. Not true, he says. Their only argument was over the value of his shares. \u201cI was always going to leave on my 70th birthday. I wanted to change direction. I didn\u2019t feel I had a great deal left to prove in motorsport. Over the last eight years I have been catching up on things I didn\u2019t have time to do when McLaren was my life.\u201d <\/p>\n

He knows what he made of his life, understands what it took. \u201cI have been so damned competitive and obsessive with motor racing that it was to the detriment of everything else. People say, \u2018Tell me what the secret is, you know, of your success, and I say it\u2019s the same secret a top athlete has. It is coming to terms with the word sacrifice. If you don\u2019t know what sacrifice means, what you have to give of your life to be the very best at something, you\u2019ve got no chance of being anything.\u201d <\/p>\n

As a teenager, he was expected to start work at eight, finish at five. He got there for seven, didn\u2019t leave until ten at night. They thought he was mad but came to appreciate he was merely passionate. And very smart. Because of that, opportunities came his way. <\/p>\n

\"Young<\/p>\n

With a young Lewis Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix in August 1997<\/p>\n

SUTTON\/EMPICS.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople talk now about life balance and I know this is a sensitive subject in our society now. I get it. Everyone has a choice. But if you want to achieve, don\u2019t expect things to be given to you. Come to terms with the meaning of sacrifice, the importance of focus, commitment, determination. You can embrace these driving forces or you can be just the same as most people.\u201d <\/p>\n

On the day he left the pitlane he promised not to return. Now he watches F1 on TV, without the noise. \u201cI always turn the sound off. I know too much about it to want to listen to the rubbish that some of these commentators come out with. I watch for the purity of the race. I do love sport, still love watching grands prix. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I will never go back. You can imagine I\u2019ve got children and grandchildren, and they\u2019re pestering me about going. I will arrange it for them but I won\u2019t go. The thing is, I witnessed people coming back to Formula 1 after they\u2019d left. The thing is, your opinion is out of date, even if you\u2019re a multiple world champion. People are polite, everything you\u2019d expect them to be. They will sit you down, they will give you a coffee, but you\u2019ve got nothing to offer. You are a spare part and I would never want to be in that position. I\u2019ve got better things to do. I love my garden, even if I don\u2019t spend much time working in it myself, but I am passionate about it, passionate about so many other things in my life.\u201d <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s imagine The Sunday Times was close to the mark in 2019 and that he\u2019s now worth half or three quarters of a billion, what\u2019s a man supposed to do with that kind of money? \u201cI did a very simple piece of maths. I would give a third of my wealth away, philanthropically. I would give a third to my family; kids and grandchildren, and I would enjoy a third. I don\u2019t believe in dynasties. If you set your family up really well, give them a much better start in life than I had, then I would have fulfilled my duties as a parent. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it came to philanthropy, I felt it would be so easy to sign cheques, and I wanted to do more. I\u2019d spent a big part of my life trying to be the best in the world. Walking away from F1, I wanted to change the world, or at least change some part of the world that was important to me.\u201d <\/p>\n

How a school rugby crisis led to abrupt change of tack<\/p>\n

The starting point was a friend mentioning that Wellington College, the public school in Berkshire that is alma mater to the rugby stars James Haskell and the Evans brothers, Thom and Max, was struggling to field a team. Parents didn\u2019t want their children playing rugby. This, Dennis thought, couldn\u2019t be right and in 2019 he founded the charity Podium Analytics. <\/p>\n

His ambition was to bring together the best minds in science, technology, academia and sport to lessen the incidence of sports injury and to keep people playing for longer. He pledged to invest \u00a350million and the charity would be independent of government, sports bodies and commercial interests. Its approach would be science-led and data-driven. <\/p>\n

His background in F1 had taught him that the key to changing behaviours was to show there were better ways of doing things. A key appointment was Andy Hunt, an experienced sports administrator, who came on board as chief executive officer. Dennis then partnered with the University of Oxford to set up The Podium Institute for Sports Medicine and Technology. It committed \u00a340million to a ten-year research programme; \u00a325million from Dennis combined with \u00a315million from the university. <\/p>\n

Under its director, Professor Constantin Coussios, the institute is the first of its kind: a fully independent multidisciplinary entity dedicated to sports medicine and technology. Set up three years ago, the institute now has a team of 30 academics and PhD students. It has conducted a study into the incidence and economic impact of sport-related concussions in the UK. <\/p>\n

\"Rugby<\/p>\n

The Podium Institute is developing helmets that will provide better brain protection for athletes in various sports<\/p>\n

DUNCAN JACK FOR TIMES MEDIA<\/p>\n

The charity also developed and launched the UK\u2019s leading injury management platform, SportSmart, for grassroots sports. Utilised by clubs and schools, this platform gives players and parents the tools to prevent and manage injuries, including concussions. <\/p>\n

Much of Podium\u2019s day-to-day work involves dialogue with international and national governing bodies, schools and clubs highlighting the need to reduce sports injuries. For example, its staff spoke with the international equestrian federation (FEI), pointing out that the helmets worn by equestrian athletes were designed primarily to reduce the chance of a skull fracture rather than brain protection. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe [FEI] is now working with us,\u201d Hunt says. \u201cConstantin is leading their programme on helmets, so they are definitely moving forward. They are going to get a new standard, which means all helmet manufacturers having to completely redesign their product to deal with the issue of rotational acceleration, rather than just linear impact [on the brain], which is a massive issue for sports like equestrian and cycling.\u201d <\/p>\n

Dennis understands how much needs to be done. \u201cWe are very focused on young people. Your child could run down the school corridor, fall over, and the school is obliged to file an accident report. \u2018Tommy fell over and suffered a cut on his knee.\u2019 But someone else could get concussed on the playing field and there is no obligation to record this. That\u2019s just ridiculous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile saying this, I emphasise that sport is essential. We have to keep playing. The psychological benefits, the camaraderie, the competitiveness, everything about sport, the avoidance of obesity, the benefits go on and on, but it should be safer and this is what I want to change.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Person<\/p>\n

Some of Podium\u2019s research involves using VR technology to prevent non-acute injuries during training sessions<\/p>\n

DUNCAN JACK FOR THE TIMES<\/p>\n

The institute at Oxford has a research team working with a cohort of 120 11 to 18-year-olds looking at the effects of brain injury suffered in sport. \u201cWhen people talk about concussion and its effects there are different opinions. Perhaps it is this, perhaps it could be that. What we need to do is to take \u2018perhaps\u2019 out of the conversation,\u201d Professor Coussios says. <\/p>\n

Convinced the incidence of sports injury can be reduced, Dennis is happy to put his hand in his pocket. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some financial support from CVC, the private equity company, and that has been helpful.\u201d I ask how much he contributes. \u201cI have put in about half a million a month. And have done, on average, for the last 5\u00bd years. In fact, when I think about it, more than that.\u201d <\/p>\n

This commitment doesn\u2019t sound like retirement, I say. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know how to spell that word. No chance. I love my life. My only fear is my brain not working, because then you\u2019re doomed. Your brain\u2019s everything.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The meeting room is lightly furnished and understated. He sits on a chair drawn slightly back from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-108561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}