McLaren era ends

And so ends an era. Ron Dennis, the man who defined the most successful years of the McLaren Formula 1 team, has gone, selling his remaining shares back to the company for a rumoured £275 million ($A466m).

The departure deal for the former Chairman and CEO also brings together both the McLaren Technology Group racing company and the McLaren Automotive Limited sports car companies in the McLaren group and values it at more than £2 billion ($A3.39b).

“McLaren Group has secured finance in order to acquire Ron Dennis’s shareholdings, stimulate growth in its wider businesses and consolidate its financial arrangements,” McLaren said in a statement.

Dennis began his working life with McLaren as a mechanic in the 1960s, once costing Sir Jack Brabham a Grand Prix win after not checking a part was correctly tightened.

He oversaw the team’s glory days in the 1990s, bringing together the combination of Gordon Murray’s chassis and aerodynamic genius with the dominant power of Honda engines and the driving combination of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

The end for Dennis, who owned 25 per cent of the McLaren Technology Group and 10 per cent of McLaren Automotive, came after irreparable disagreements last year with two other shareholders, Mansour Ojjeh’s TAG and Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat.

Dennis was placed on gardening leave from the McLaren Technology Group in November.

TAG is a long-time McLaren shareholder, with Dennis offering the Luxembourg-based investment fund a 25 per cent stake in the race team to swing them across from F1 rival, Williams, in the early 1980s.

Tag also owns 11 per cent of McLaren Automotive, while 55 percent is owned by Mumtalakat, which provides the new McLaren Group’s Chairman, Sheikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa.

“I am very pleased to have reached agreement with my fellow McLaren shareholders,” a statement from the 70-year-old Dennis said.

“It represents a fitting end to my time at McLaren, and will enable me to focus on my other interests.

“I have always said that my 37 years at Woking should be considered as a chapter in the McLaren book, and I wish McLaren every success as it takes the story forward.

“Perhaps my greatest satisfaction is the Formula 1 team’s outstanding racing safety record, which is a tribute to the dedication and efforts of hundreds if not thousands of talented and conscientious employees whom I have had the privilege of leading.

“I will continue to consult for various companies and work with the UK Government’s Ministry of Defence Innovation Advisory Panel in helping to improve the technology, the culture and the organisations that together safeguard the UK’s national security.

“Now that my time at McLaren has come to an end, I will be able to involve myself in a series of other programmes and activities, especially those focused on public service.

“I will continue to indulge my passion for supporting contemporary artists and collecting their work, but most of all I will be driving new ideas and projects forward.

“Last but far from least, I wish McLaren well, and I send my greatest thanks and best wishes to my colleagues in all corners of its business, and at every level of seniority. Truly, they are the best of the best.

“And, well funded to succeed and grow, and led by an ambitious management team, McLaren is ideally poised to build on the successes that I am so proud to have contributed to during my time leading such a great British group of companies.”

Dennis took control of McLaren in 1981, bringing the first carbon-fibre chassis into the sport (or at least at the same time as Lotus) and winning 158 grands Prix and seven constructors’ titles.

His drivers’ world champions include Niki Lauda (1984), Alain Prost (1985, 1986 and 1989), Ayrton Senna (1988, 1990 and 1991), Mika Hakkinen (1998 and 1999) and Lewis Hamilton (2008) and his F1 was the last road-going car to win the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

He has not been to a Formula 1 race this year, though he oversaw the reintroduction of Honda to the McLaren team.

The departure of Dennis comes as McLaren reported a record £9.2m ($A15.6m) profit before tax in 2016, when it also sold a record 3286 cars.