Ron Dennis said that the team, including Lewis, has learned quite a lot from the performance and events last season. “I will not give myself the luxury of thinking how I’ll feel because the problem will be coming to terms with how I feel if he isn’t successful. I have to be calm, disciplined and lead by example,” said the boss man.
“I was a little surprised that some of the media have almost been saying: ‘Let’s watch them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory’. Well, boy oh boy, if you think that presses a nerve ending now, wait until after Brazil if it unfolds that way.
“Everyone will dump on us big time. They won’t look at any other set of circumstances that happened this year and just say that McLaren screwed up - again.
“I know it’s not done yet. But believe me, winning in adversity would really have a high level of satisfaction.” Rumours of Dennis quitting the team were on the rounds last season after McLaren were charged with spying, and were fined a mammoth 50 million pounds. “Earlier this year, there were rumours that some people felt I should step down as team principal,” he said. “And, yes, the fact is that I did agonize over whether that would have been the correct thing to do. But there comes a time when you have to be true to your values and your beliefs.
“There was nobody in the organization telling me to do anything other than stay on. In the end, I did decide to stay. And out of that decision came renewed motivation, shared by all my colleagues, to try our damnedest to make this season the very best of seasons in McLaren’s history. To turn a negative into a positive, in other words.”