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[EwanM]

McLaren buys back Mercedes stake

By Steven English Thursday, March 18th 2010, 17:03 GMT

McLaren has bought back the majority of Mercedes-Benz's stake in its Formula 1 team.

The German manufacturer owned 40 per cent of McLaren's F1 operation prior to taking over Brawn GP.

Mercedes denied at the time that the deal would mean the end of its relationship with McLaren, but admitted that the partnership, which is currently agreed until the end of 2011, would change.

McLaren said back in November that it planned to buy back the shares from Mercedes and team boss Martin Whitmarsh said today that the McLaren Group has regained a significant portion of the stake.

"I think it is about 11 per cent that is still owned by Mercedes, but it's not an important or significant number," he was quoted as saying by Reuters.

McLaren Automotive chairman and former team boss Ron Dennis owns 15 per cent of the team, as does Saudi businessman Mansour Ojjeh, with a further 30 per cent belonging to Bahrain company Mumtalakat.

Whitmarsh was speaking today at the launch of McLaren's MP4-12C sportscar, which he hopes can compete against Ferraris in the GT racing world. He has spoken to Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo about future competition between the two in sportscars.

"Our message there was: 'We want to race with you [Ferrari]. Where are you going to go? Why don't we go together?'"

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82224

Your thoughts? Alot of money has been spent to buy the shares back.

Some problems could arise for the company in the medium term?

What do you make of the potential GT entry?

[racechick]

Car looks cool. If you scroll down this article there's a video about the car.

Be good when it beats the Ferarri

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8572513.stm

[scotty]

I just hope this points towards them making their own F1 engines... it would be very, very good for F1 in the forseeable future if that were the case.

Some of the things Ron Dennis said in that BBC article made me laugh. It's a bloody supercar and he's managed to make it sound boring!!

[bud]

I dont see any issues in the short term.

[Frosty]

McLaren cash flow is good and costs in F1 have dropped to a quarter to what it was a couple of seasons ago and remember McLaren got a good deal buying back the shares because McLaren let Mercedes have their own F1 team early. McLaren has been invested in strongly and it's F1 team is well supported by decent sponsors and has very marketable assets such as strong performance and high profile drivers that bring in a lot of money.

[AKR]

I hope it is a downward trend for McLaren from here on in.

And the new McLaren sports car wont beat Ferrari. The new Ferrari 458 Italia is very special. The "Italia" part of the name says it all.

And in sports car racing Ferrari has dominated for the last 5 years. The Maserati MC12 is a Ferrari with a Maserati badge on it. It has won under the Vitafone racing team, the GT1 championship for the last 5 years. Hopefully it wins again this year. Of course the car is getting old now and a successor is required. Not sure what it will be, but if the new McLaren Sports car is to compete in GT1 and not GT2, and if the new McLaren is supposed to compete against the 458 Italia, then I would say perhaps the 458 will succeed the MC12? Not sure but if anyone else knows, feel free to let me know.

[Gaz]

I hope it is a downward trend for McLaren from here on in.

And the new McLaren sports car wont beat Ferrari. The new Ferrari 458 Italia is very special. The "Italia" part of the name says it all.

And in sports car racing Ferrari has dominated for the last 5 years. The Maserati MC12 is a Ferrari with a Maserati badge on it. It has won under the Vitafone racing team, the GT1 championship for the last 5 years. Hopefully it wins again this year. Of course the car is getting old now and a successor is required. Not sure what it will be, but if the new McLaren Sports car is to compete in GT1 and not GT2, and if the new McLaren is supposed to compete against the 458 Italia, then I would say perhaps the 458 will succeed the MC12? Not sure but if anyone else knows, feel free to let me know.

the only reason SF has dominated is because Mclaren wasn't there.

The F1 dominated when it raced

[bud]

wouldnt even bother having a proper discussion on the topic with AKR, I mean whats the point Gaz?

[Mark_Jones]

I hope it is a downward trend for McLaren from here on in.

And the new McLaren sports car wont beat Ferrari. The new Ferrari 458 Italia is very special. The "Italia" part of the name says it all.

And in sports car racing Ferrari has dominated for the last 5 years. The Maserati MC12 is a Ferrari with a Maserati badge on it. It has won under the Vitafone racing team, the GT1 championship for the last 5 years. Hopefully it wins again this year. Of course the car is getting old now and a successor is required. Not sure what it will be, but if the new McLaren Sports car is to compete in GT1 and not GT2, and if the new McLaren is supposed to compete against the 458 Italia, then I would say perhaps the 458 will succeed the MC12? Not sure but if anyone else knows, feel free to let me know.

The MC12 is a completely different car. It's a GT1 car and the Ferrari 458 (successor of the f430) will probably be an GT2 car.
The MC12 is a supercar together with the Ferrari Enzo, Porsche Carrera GT, Koenigsegg CCX etc. The power of the new Mclaren and the new Ferrari 458 won't even come close to the powers of the "real supercars"

Sportscars 400-500bhp
Supercars > 600bhp

[AKR]

I hope it is a downward trend for McLaren from here on in.

And the new McLaren sports car wont beat Ferrari. The new Ferrari 458 Italia is very special. The "Italia" part of the name says it all.

And in sports car racing Ferrari has dominated for the last 5 years. The Maserati MC12 is a Ferrari with a Maserati badge on it. It has won under the Vitafone racing team, the GT1 championship for the last 5 years. Hopefully it wins again this year. Of course the car is getting old now and a successor is required. Not sure what it will be, but if the new McLaren Sports car is to compete in GT1 and not GT2, and if the new McLaren is supposed to compete against the 458 Italia, then I would say perhaps the 458 will succeed the MC12? Not sure but if anyone else knows, feel free to let me know.

The MC12 is a completely different car. It's a GT1 car and the Ferrari 458 (successor of the f430) will probably be an GT2 car.
The MC12 is a supercar together with the Ferrari Enzo, Porsche Carrera GT, Koenigsegg CCX etc. The power of the new Mclaren and the new Ferrari 458 won't even come close to the powers of the "real supercars"

Sportscars 400-500bhp
Supercars > 600bhp

Cool. I suspected the 458 and McLaren counterpart would be GT2 class. The 458 looks very much the F430 successor. Thought I would ask though as wasn't sure so thanks for the info. Although on the question of GT1 cars. The Ferrari 550 won 2 titles in the GT1 class or what was then the premium class in sports car racing just prior to the MC12's dominance. The 550 doesnt look much more than the F430 or like what you call a "real supercar". Anything I'm missing here?

[AKR]

wouldnt even bother having a proper discussion on the topic with AKR, I mean whats the point Gaz?

Typical tough man. You love putting women down don't you.

[texasmr2]

First I like like to say congrats to McLaren I think it is a great move .

I just hope this points towards them making their own F1 engines... it would be very, very good for F1 in the forseeable future if that were the case.

That would be very cool imo aswell and perhaps a TAG engine ? Also it would be fantastic to see McLaren competeing against Ferrari.

[AKR]

I hope it is a downward trend for McLaren from here on in.

And the new McLaren sports car wont beat Ferrari. The new Ferrari 458 Italia is very special. The "Italia" part of the name says it all.

And in sports car racing Ferrari has dominated for the last 5 years. The Maserati MC12 is a Ferrari with a Maserati badge on it. It has won under the Vitafone racing team, the GT1 championship for the last 5 years. Hopefully it wins again this year. Of course the car is getting old now and a successor is required. Not sure what it will be, but if the new McLaren Sports car is to compete in GT1 and not GT2, and if the new McLaren is supposed to compete against the 458 Italia, then I would say perhaps the 458 will succeed the MC12? Not sure but if anyone else knows, feel free to let me know.

the only reason SF has dominated is because Mclaren wasn't there.

The F1 dominated when it raced

The McLaren dominated the BPR series (As it was called from 1994, 1995 and 1996). But it raced against much older Ferrari F-40s, Ferrari 348 and a huge field of Porsche 911 GT2s. Of course McLaren was going to dominate. But I doubt ti would dominate against the MC12.

Although Porsche dominated this series in 1994 with McLaren dominating in 1995 and 1996. In Sports car racing overall, when it was the World Sports Car Championship from the 1950s until the early 1990s. Ferrari dominated in the 50s and early 60s (until Enzo Ferrari decided to concentrate fully in F1) and then Porsche was the main dominate force of the 70s and 80s. Btw I love Porsche cars as well. Espcially the sexy 911 cars.

[Mark_Jones]

I hope it is a downward trend for McLaren from here on in.

And the new McLaren sports car wont beat Ferrari. The new Ferrari 458 Italia is very special. The "Italia" part of the name says it all.

And in sports car racing Ferrari has dominated for the last 5 years. The Maserati MC12 is a Ferrari with a Maserati badge on it. It has won under the Vitafone racing team, the GT1 championship for the last 5 years. Hopefully it wins again this year. Of course the car is getting old now and a successor is required. Not sure what it will be, but if the new McLaren Sports car is to compete in GT1 and not GT2, and if the new McLaren is supposed to compete against the 458 Italia, then I would say perhaps the 458 will succeed the MC12? Not sure but if anyone else knows, feel free to let me know.

The MC12 is a completely different car. It's a GT1 car and the Ferrari 458 (successor of the f430) will probably be an GT2 car.
The MC12 is a supercar together with the Ferrari Enzo, Porsche Carrera GT, Koenigsegg CCX etc. The power of the new Mclaren and the new Ferrari 458 won't even come close to the powers of the "real supercars"

Sportscars 400-500bhp
Supercars > 600bhp

Cool. I suspected the 458 and McLaren counterpart would be GT2 class. The 458 looks very much the F430 successor. Thought I would ask though as wasn't sure so thanks for the info. Although on the question of GT1 cars. The Ferrari 550 won 2 titles in the GT1 class or what was then the premium class in sports car racing just prior to the MC12's dominance. The 550 doesnt look much more than the F430 or like what you call a "real supercar". Anything I'm missing here?

True, but the GT1 version of the 550 was tuned to 600bhp (the street version having 485bhp). The GT2 versions of the F430 also have about 485bhp

[bud]

wouldnt even bother having a proper discussion on the topic with AKR, I mean whats the point Gaz?

Typical tough man. You love putting women down don't you.

nice one, I've got nothing against women but I'm sick of your crap