That part was mainly due to Uncle Ron trying to take deliberate advantage of Mansour Ojjeh then-fragile/precarious health when he was on his "death bed" around the time of his double lung transplant back in late-2013.
Yes, I heard that. It was said that Ron Dennis tried to recapitalise the McLaren Group, to develop the car production, and Mansour Ojjeh's share of the capital would have been reduced. The finances would have come from Chinese invstors; that's what the papers reported. As most of it was planned when Ojjeh was incapacitated by illness, he took a deem view of that move when he heard of it. Back in the saddle, Ojjeh, feeling betrayed by his friend, blocked the move and joined the Bahraini shareholders againsr RD Dennis lost the majority of votes on the bord, (now reduced to 25%), then his position as chairman, then CEO, etc ... Rather that staying as a simple shareholder, Ron Dennis accepted to sell his portfolio of shares to the rest of the board for £275M, it was announced. He invested his fortune in real estate, according to rumours.
In hindsight, what he accomplished was remarkable. I have the greatest respect for him even if he is an Englishman.
Some thoughtful, even-handed obits: https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2021/05/25/max-mosley-1940-2021/ https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57231465 https://www.autosport.com/general/news/obituary-max-mosley-1940-2021/6515572/
A divorce that brought forwards by his wife's infidelity. Ron did not act inappropriately in that deal.
From "March Discovers America" Alan "Mad Dog" McCall rang to say that he had met Don Wittington and had sent him on to Bicester. None of us had heard of Don, but he duly arrived with a suitcase full of cash, just like in the movies, and by the end of that day we had the go-ahead on the project and the Whittingtons bought four cars from us. Don is a charismatic man and a very good driver, it's a pity he got involved in shady deals because I think he could have gone to the very top. "It was a fairy tale time for us because we'd gone from the depths of despair to the heights of elation in just a few weeks. I remember supervising a torsion test on the prototype 81C just before it was delivered and discovering that the area around the gear shift was flexing too much. I authorized a mod which delayed the car 24 hours and Don was threatening to shoot me, literally, if I didn't release it, otherwise he would miss the last practice day. This would have been at the end of March, because Indy is closed throughout April. The car left Bicester on a Saturday night, after we'd worked around the clock for days on end, and once it had gone we all collapsed." "Later I had a call from the States; it was Keith Leyton ringing from Indy. I was expecting another rollicking, but instead he said, "listen to this" and held out the phone and I could hear a car going around at high speed. "That's the 81C", he said. It was just 35 hours after it had left us, Bicester to Gatwick, Gatwick to Atlanta, Atlanta to Indy, and out on the track, and if that isn't a record of some sort I'd be very surprised." The Whittington brothers were prominent in many forms of American racing and two of them, Don and Bill, had stood on the winner's rostrum with Klaus Ludwig at LeMans in 1979. They made their money by running a private airline which imported smokers' (non-tobacco) requisites into the USA from South America and their fleet consisted of ex-WW2 Mustangs, which they also used for pylon racing, but the business was run without official approval. When Uncle Sam found out he issued the brothers invitations to be his guests for lengthy periods.
Ironically, there was a 1/12 model of that car just released! Look at reply #1321 on the following: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/1-12-models-tamiya-kyosho-autoart.103192/page-53
I'm sorry but having hookers dressing up as SS officers and others in concentration camp outfits, barking out orders in German about being the aryan race, whilst Mosley's family have been very closely aligned with Hitler goes a little bit further than ''innocent bottom flagellation''.
Apart from the few spelling errors, that’s pretty much what I also read about the circumstances around his ouster from McLaren.
In my experience, people don't suddenly start doing morally bankrupt things once they've reached the top, they do them to get to the top and then keep doing them until it blows up on them. It taints what accomplishments he did have as I'm sure there are plenty more examples along the way of him stealing or screwing people over to get where he was. If he is the one that set up Mosley, well just another one to add to it. Hard to respect people with that kind of moral turpitude. Mosley certainly wasn't a beloved figure, he was Bernie's guy and that was that.
both ron and max seem to have left a trail of abusing people. cant imagine stiffing people after having them work for me. no one forgets that.
Are you sure that's exactly what happened ? In fact, as it was revealed in court, the event never took place as it was initially reported in the papers. There was a private meeting between Mosley and a few dominatrix where some SM practices took place. But the Nazi uniform theme was added to the story by the tabloid in an attempt to further smear Max Mosley. It never existed. Max Mosley hadn't broken any law but the tabloids had.
IIRC wasn't it Mosley who insisted that a chicane could not be added to the USGP with the Michelin FIAsco? I don't care what he did in his personal life at night, nor what party affiliations he liked, but preventing the USGP from happening in an orderly fashion is inexcusable.
