The biggest Formula 1 news from the last few days has been the announcement that Ron Dennis has stepped down as chairman and CEO of the McLaren Group after 35 years.
F1 legend Dennis took over running of the McLaren F1 team in 1981 and led the British outfit to 17 world titles in total, with drivers like Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Lewis Hamilton.
He has been put on gardening leave (that’s going to be one pristine and perfectly-manicured garden) but remains a shareholder and director of the McLaren Technology Group. But McLaren are on the hunt for a new CEO, as it’s being run by a committee on an interim basis.
Dennis is undoubtedly one of the greatest team leaders in F1 history and led McLaren to success with some incredible drivers.
But this classic video footage from 1993 shows him talking to Michael Schumacher at an event, in a bid to try and get him interested in joining McLaren.
At the time, Schumacher was racing for Benetton and would soon take the first two of his seven world titles. Of course, he later went on to become F1’s most successful ever driver.
Dennis didn’t manage to convince Schumacher to join McLaren, as he continued to race for Benetton before achieving great success at Ferrari and finishing his career at Mercedes – returning with the German manufacturer after a few seasons away from F1.
But it’s interesting to hear Dennis talking to Schumacher about whether McLaren could be an option in the future, and also giving him some advice about taking care of himself, as he felt his driving at the time was sometimes on the limit.
It also seems a bit weird to describe Schumacher as “horrendously impressive”, maybe he thought that was a bit of an insult at first?