McLaren’s Dennis ‘asked Brawn GP for secret car data in 2009’ — Keith Collantine — RaceFans

This story isn’t quite as juicy as the headline suggests. Essentially Ron Dennis asked Nick Fry for Brawn GP’s chassis performance figures to help him benchmark the performance of the McLaren.

But it’s still an extraordinary revelation. And one quote in particular made me think of much more recent events.

According to Fry, Dennis told him McLaren’s MP4-24 chassis “is totally under-performing, as you have no doubt noticed, but my engineers say our aerodynamic package is on the money. The thing is I just don’t believe them.”

McLaren’s engineering director at the time was Paddy Lowe, whose recent spell at Williams appeared to be… under-performing.

Meanwhile, the denial at McLaren about their chassis performance continued up until last year. Then, it became crystal clear that blaming all their problems on Honda engines wasn’t going to wash.

I’ve written many times about how McLaren’s (and Williams’) problems go back many years. This new insight gives us a clue that senior figures were beginning to cotton onto that as early as 2009.