McLaren Had Problems With Senna, Prost, Raikkonen, Montoya, Perhaps The Problem

[Alianora La Canta]

In which case maybe you should try an on-line business and rope in some people from GPWizard to be colleagues? There seem to be like-minded people to you here...

[raindancer]

Warning! Long post alert!

Perhaps the problem is that McLaren, like every other team, works best with one type of driver and works considerably less well with other types?

huh  {dare, quoting Alianora La Canta - 4 comments ago}

dare, what I mean is that every organisation has a particular ambience, a particular culture, a particular way of doing things (or methodology as Ron would call it) generated by those working within it. That ambience/culture/methodology will attact some people and repel others. You need only think of the places and people where each of you have worked in the past to see that you work better in workplaces and with people that fit the way you think, rather than those which work in ways that seem strange to you.

The same principle works in F1 teams. If you have a slightly chaotic team where the technical director is an extremely powerful influence, then you will get more performance from the team if you listen to that technical director and treat him as an equal rather than forever trying to prove a point against him or seeming perpetually scared of him. Isn't that right, Jacques Villenueve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (at Williams in 1997-8)?

If your team has a team principal that appears to have a clear favourite before you've even started, that favourite isn't you and the principal won't stand still long enough to explain why, you'll probably have a somewhat easier time of it if you don't argue too hard back, don't take it as an intended insult and simply try to do what you think you should be doing as well as you can. Jarno Trulli can attest to this at Renault.

If your team, on the other hand, is a highly disciplined team that expects its drivers to be equally disciplined, that likes to keep a reasonably low profile in the press (and prefers its administration to do the talking when it does speak out) and expects its drivers to at least try to co-operate with each other and with team strategies, you need to be disciplined, low-profile and co-operative, you should try to be those things. Needless to say, the team I refer to in this case is McLaren. Everyone in the list failed at least one of those attributes.

Prost and Senna fell out with each other bigstyle, as you'd perhaps expect the two biggest titans of the age to do when forced to face each other in the same team. Senna demanded the best of his team at the expense of his team-mate, fuelled by years at Lotus where that was the only way any decent results at all were possible. Prost in turn was generally argumentative in the sense lkjohnson referred to (and got even more so in the psuedopolitically-charged Ferrari), which wouldn't have amused Ron any.

Raikkonen was apparently a bit indisciplined with the drink, which wouldn't have helped his cause. Though to be honest, his "problems" were probably no bigger than the problems a driver can expect to have with a team they have slight incompatibilities with. Raikkonen needed a consistently winning car most of all, because as we now know he finds it difficult to motivate himself unless there's something to clearly compete against (though unlike Hakkinen before him, he won't lose heart simply because he's near the back of the grid - it's being left in a lonely position of any type that causes him motivation issues). McLaren couldn't provide the car, so he went to a team that he thought could deliver what he needed. And in the case of 2007 at least, he was right...

Montoya came up with problems that nobody else could see quite often, and was also highly indisciplined. Turning the McLaren Communications Centre into a creche was the biggest symbolic representation of indiscipline I have ever seen an F1 driver commit off-track.

Alonso was too high-profile in his complaints. For a low-key team, that's a major irritant. When the complaints appear to include psuedopolitically incendinary stuff, it's more than an irritant. Some teams take it better than others, but McLaren was always going to take it really, really badly.

This is what I meant by my original comment, dare.

I will agree with Ali here. Its like a top corporate exec changing his job. The change may not fit.
Bottom line, Alonso didn't fit in Mclaren and Hamilton did. Fact ofcourse is some bloddy good drivers like Kimi, Montoyo , prost & Senna were never really embraced.

[TheStig]

I only said,Alonso had a dream to race for Ferrari one day

TheStig

[Steven Roy]

I will agree with Ali here. Its like a top corporate exec changing his job. The change may not fit.
Bottom line, Alonso didn't fit in Mclaren and Hamilton did. Fact ofcourse is some bloddy good drivers like Kimi, Montoyo , prost & Senna were never really embraced.

I don't see why you think Senna wasn't really embraced by McLaren.  The team was built round him until he decided to leave.  Ron has frequently said that he made the mistake of spending too much on Senna and effectively neglected spending on the car to keep Senna happy.  Berger wasn't kept in the team for as long as he was for any other reason than the fact that he kept Senna happy.  It certainly wasn't for his performances in the car.

Right from the start Ron liked Senna even though McLaren was team Prost.  During their negotiations for his first contract Ron reached a point where he was not prepared to go any further.  Senna dug his heels in and they were sparated by half a million dollars per year.  Considering their relative positions at the time Ron could have told him that he was not prepared to move and Senna would have had little choice but accept it.  Instead they ended up tossing a coin for it which Senna won.  It was only afterwards that Ron realised that he hadn't tossed a coin for  half a million dollars because it was a three year contract and the coin toss cost him one and a half million.

[John S]

I will agree with Ali here. Its like a top corporate exec changing his job. The change may not fit.
Bottom line, Alonso didn't fit in Mclaren and Hamilton did. Fact ofcourse is some bloddy good drivers like Kimi, Montoyo , prost & Senna were never really embraced.

I have to agree with Steven about Prost, for a few years McLaren was Team Prost, it was not Ron's desire to oust Prost but rather to ensure a succesion of winning seasons that brought Senna and trouble for the harmony of the team. I believe Senna purposely sought to put a wedge between Prost and the team, the professor eventually packed his tent and moved on to success elswhere.

[TheStig]

Talk about opening a can of worms.

TheStig

[Steven Roy]

Prost was given the option to veto Senna but said he wanted the team to have the best two drivers.  In the two years that they were together they won one championship each but really that was because of the scoring system in place at the time.  Best 11 from 16 scores counted.  In reality Prost scored more points in each season which is a bit different to how people remember it.

[Ian]

You surely did Stig, nice one, I love it, keep it up old buddy. 

[SennaMan]

I have very much enjoyed the comments here, especially those from ALC about McLAREN's Team culture and consider she is "right on the button" particularly about not so sweet FA's time with them.

In fact when you consider McLAREN team history we have to conclude it strongly suggests its culture is "difficult".

I consider the responsibility and blame rests with RD as team owner/principal.

May I point out to forum members the real reason for the bad blood between my hero SENNA and PROST the "Professor":

SENNA demanded and got a secret clause in his contact with McLAREN [which he had designed  to cobble AP and destroy PROST's very close ties with the team].

It was outrageous but SENNA's car was to always have better performance!

When PROUST found out about it mid-season he was furious particularly when ron DENNIS would not delete the clause!

Just another dark side to AS, the guy I think was the best F1 driver of them all - stirling MOSS was the best all-round racing driver but that is best left to another post.   

[Ian]

Hehe Sennaman, another can of worms. 

[SennaMan]

Hehe Sennaman, another can of worms. 

lol!. yeah Ian, thanks and no worries mate.

i have always been totally fascinated by ayrton SENNA and not just about how could enter an "out-of-body" supreme driving zone almost at will either

he was such a complex fellow with extreme traits at either end of the personality spectrum - sometimes a genius saint and others an ugly smouldering devil

i am quite sure he burned the trail and was the 'model' for the ruthless but superb driving style of michael SCHUMACHER until the excesses he later developed into an art form just had to be squashed by the officials before it really got out of hand

and i have read some reports and articles comparing lewis HAMILTON to MS for some dubious driving tactics too

perhaps ya have to be a bit of a bastard to succeed after all?

[Ian]

F.A.B, as I said before, it's all about the driver with the biggest hunger for winning, it's a great sport to watch but when your in the seat..........up yours, it's my corner, take a hike

[SennaMan]

F.A.B, as I said before, it's all about the driver with the biggest hunger for winning, it's a great sport to watch but when your in the seat..........up yours, it's my corner, take a hike

yeah mate, it is racing after all and cornering is where a driver has to be uncompromising or everyone will be emboldened to have a go at him!

[Dare]

I didn't really follow F1 when Senna was driving and
from what I've read  I missed one of the best.His
lap on Youtube at Monaco shows how hard those
cars were to drive.Looks like he fought the wheel the
whole lap

[SennaMan]

I didn't really follow F1 when Senna was driving and
from what I've read  I missed one of the best.His
lap on Youtube at Monaco shows how hard those
cars were to drive.Looks like he fought the wheel the
whole lap

yeah Dare, it was a golden era mate of supremely gifted and courageous drivers and i was lucky enough to be around to witness it - yeah i am that old!

mind you, to modern eyes the old F1cars are death traps and I remember MS saying he would not drive one - he could see they were just too dangerous

for example both the driver's feet ended up in front of the front axle and front wheels so you can see how vunerable their legs and hips were even in a medium crash or shunt

the safety and design of the modern F1 car has evolved substantially since then thankfully

sir jackie STEWART and even max MOSLEY had a lot to do with ensuring the safety of F1 drivers from those times

the real drive for advanced standards of driver safety came from the terrible weekend of 1 May 1994 at IMOLA when both roland RATZENBERGER and ayrton SENNA needlessly lost their lives due to a tragic confluence of substandard car design and woeful track safety standards:

"Improved crash barriers, redesigned tracks and tyre barriers, higher crash safety standards, and higher sills on the driver cockpit are changes due to Senna and Ratzenberger's deaths." [from Wikipedia article on ayrton]


yeah, one year when qualifying at MONACO ayrton scared everyone by entering what he later described as an "out-of-body" zone and broke the lap record consecutively each time he lapped - his pace was so fast, seasoned onlookers were certain he was going to crash and kill himself

however, this 2008 season has kept me enthralled as we have had many different faces on the podium but i must confess i am not as passionate about the sport as i once was

after over 50 years of fascination i guess my old age has replaced my rather obsessive interest...........