McLaren is planning a "giant step" forward as a company that will give its F1 team "more muscle to take on mighty Mercedes and Ferrari," Chair & CEO Ron Dennis said after a "dismal" '15 season on the track, according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. Without a title sponsor, McLaren has seen some "prominent partners depart to rivals" and will lose out on tens of millions of dollars in revenues due to its "lowly placing" in the championship. Dennis, however, said that the group as a whole "was doing well," with equity value of more than $1.51B. He said, "Our objective as shareholders is always to think about growth. Whilst I completely understand the interest in who owns what, the actual process we are going through at the moment is how can we be bigger, stronger?" McLaren changed its name last year to McLaren Technology Group, incorporating the car company and applied technologies as well as the F1 team. The F1 side now represents between 34% and 38% of the business. Dennis: "We are strong, very strong, financially." Dennis said that he remained "very robust" on the rate card for sponsors, even if the environment "was challenging and some sought to exploit the track performance to their advantage." He said, "The worst thing you can do is get into a situation where you drop your rate card. And then everything spins out of control" (REUTERS, 12/1).
HAMILTON, ROSBERG TO SPLIT?: In London, Kevin Eason reported Mercedes execs are "steeling themselves to break up the warring combination" of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg as the relationship between the two drivers "plumbs new depths." Although they won 15 races between them this season, "the tension between the pair has infected the team" to the extent that Mercedes Exec Dir Toto Wolff has "admitted for the first time that one may have to go." Wolff: "We struggle sometimes in winning races on Sunday and having always one [driver] upset and this spills over into the team. It is something that needs to stop. We took the decision of having two evenly matched drivers in order to make the team progress faster and better. Going forward, we will consider if it is the best set-up for the team" (LONDON TIMES, 12/2).
