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[onelapdown]

remember his fights with Ballestre?

Nope... perhaps you could fill me in?

[darwin dali]

"But in the middle of 1986 the FIA announced that Group B rallying was being cancelled at the end of the year. Outraged, Todt took legal action against the federation (he lost) and Peugeot switched to rally raids in 1987.

Todt's battle with FIA President Jean-Marie Balestre showed that he was not scared to take on officialdom. The two traded insults with Balestre mocking Todt's social ambitions and calling him the "Napoleon of the Sands". Todt fired back that he preferred that to being labelled "the Emperor Bokassa of the Place de la Concorde", a reference to the tyrant who was running the Central African Republic at the time."

[onelapdown]

"But in the middle of 1986 the FIA announced that Group B rallying was being cancelled at the end of the year. Outraged, Todt took legal action against the federation (he lost) and Peugeot switched to rally raids in 1987.

Todt's battle with FIA President Jean-Marie Balestre showed that he was not scared to take on officialdom. The two traded insults with Balestre mocking Todt's social ambitions and calling him the "Napoleon of the Sands". Todt fired back that he preferred that to being labelled "the Emperor Bokassa of the Place de la Concorde", a reference to the tyrant who was running the Central African Republic at the time."

JT's just gone up in my estimation...

[racechick]

He's still an ugly sod with a love affair for Michael Schumacher

[Ron Dennis]

I'm pretty confident that there are not too many that deny RD was a pretty successful team manager - we could argue about your superlative of most successful. At any rate, the past is the past and now is now. Fact is RD's management style earned McLaren a setback of a whopping 100 million bucks. Not only that, he's ultimately also responsible for losing both championships this year all the while McLaren was in a prime position to win both. Plus they're hamstrung next season as well with their extra scrutineering and bad pit position.
This would look pretty bad in most businesses' books. RD seems to have lost his plot. Old drivers who can't beat their team mates anymore retire, so should he.

Fact is Rd did what?

I think the words ‘fact is’ are misplaced.

Fact is you know nothing of the sort.

And though I am not one to jump on the crazy conspiracy bandwagon, I still cannot get around the fact that a very intelligent man and his wife, working for a massive organization with many millions of pounds in their bank account - took documents reading "PROPERTY OF FERRARI -TOP SECRET" to a public copy shop. Because of this single mind numbingly stupid act, I think it was most certainly NOT RD's managing style that cost them $100,000,000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/7088488.stm

[f1ea]

Hm, either your internal clock runs fast or you got the years wrong because of some malfunction upstairs.

LOL what?! aren't we in 2008?? LOL ... never been too good with years.... i'll ease up on the coffee just to be on the safe side

[darwin dali]

Hm, either your internal clock runs fast or you got the years wrong because of some malfunction upstairs.

LOL what?! aren't we in 2008?? LOL ... never been too good with years.... i'll ease up on the coffee just to be on the safe side

That might help your frantic pace in life

[McLaren Fan]

I'm pretty confident that there are not too many that deny RD was a pretty successful team manager - we could argue about your superlative of most successful. At any rate, the past is the past and now is now. Fact is RD's management style earned McLaren a setback of a whopping 100 million bucks. Not only that, he's ultimately also responsible for losing both championships this year all the while McLaren was in a prime position to win both. Plus they're hamstrung next season as well with their extra scrutineering and bad pit position.
This would look pretty bad in most businesses' books. RD seems to have lost his plot. Old drivers who can't beat their team mates anymore retire, so should he.

Mike Coughlan, Pedro de la Rosa and Fernado Alonso cost McLaren $100 million and the constructors' title. A bad tyre choice in China and a mechanical failure/mistake by Lewis Hamilton cost McLaren the drivers' title. You don't half manipulate the facts.

RD (1980-2007) 9 WDC (33%), 7 WCC (26%).
JT (1993-2007) 6 WDC (43%), 7 WCC (50%). Plus numerous World Rally and World Sportscar Championships as team manager of Peugeot before his move to Ferrari.

Nice statistics, showing they really can be used to prove anything. Why don't you tell us why Jean 'Superman' Todt was unable to win anything at Ferrari until Schumacher et al. arrived?

I take that point, but the difference is that Todt did that on the back of Ferrari, whereas the whole of McLaren's success since 1981 is ultimately down to Dennis.

I would then throw in the fact that when JT moved to Ferrari he found a formerly great team in shambles and had to rebuild from scratch - in record time I might add, the first race wins came surprisingly soon. So it was a new beginning by JT.

I love the way in which you keep saying the 'fact'. It's not fact. It's your very lose and very disingenuous take on some statistics and history. Here is a fact however: Ferrari did not become a serious force until Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne showed up and the team was geared around Schumacher. I think that is more telling than you biased slant on matters.

You're just the type of person I'm talking about, DD. Your utterly pathetic anti-McLaren, anti-Ron Dennis view has been totally exposed again. So, let's have it: Should Flavio Briatore go given that fifteen members of his team have signed pieces of paper to say they knew about the McLaren information?

[darwin dali]

No, it was RD who fostered a climate at McLaren that was conducive to that kind of behavior. Bad coaching lost them the WDC.

The Ferrari at that time was a dog (AP quote). They hadn't won anything in 14 years - the old glory was just that: old. You dispute the 'fact' that Ferrari was in shambles?
JT was instrumental in hiring MS (at a clip of $30m a year - back then!) and the two RB's - so that counts in his favor of foresight and good management. He started in the summer of 1993 and two and a half years later Ferrari was winning races again on a fairly regular basis. That's pretty darn good.

Yes, I don't like RD for various reasons, but am not anti-McLaren.

Re. FB - I reserve judgment until more info is available. But yes, if FB has the same level of involvement/knowledge/attempts to obfuscate as RD then yes, he too should resign.

[onelapdown]

The Ferrari at that time was a dog (AP quote). They hadn't won anything in 14 years - the old glory was just that: old. You dispute the 'fact' that Ferrari was in shambles?
JT was instrumental in hiring MS (at a clip of $30m a year - back then!) and the two RB's - so that counts in his favor of foresight and good management. He started in the summer of 1993 and two and a half years later Ferrari was winning races again on a fairly regular basis. That's pretty darn good.

I'd have to agree with that.

[McLaren Fan]

No, it was RD who fostered a climate at McLaren that was conducive to that kind of behavior. Bad coaching lost them the WDC.

Dennis did nothing wrong. Alonso was unhappy about getting beaten by a rookie, the same way Lauda was unhappy about being beaten by Prost, and Prost being unhappy about being beaten by Senna. A consequence of there not being a number one driver, however, that's McLaren's way and, as I've told you before, it's worked very well. Without Alonso losing his cool several times and the bad tyre decision in China, McLaren would have won this year's drivers' title.

The Ferrari at that time was a dog (AP quote). They hadn't won anything in 14 years - the old glory was just that: old. You dispute the 'fact' that Ferrari was in shambles?
JT was instrumental in hiring MS (at a clip of $30m a year - back then!) and the two RB's - so that counts in his favor of foresight and good management. He started in the summer of 1993 and two and a half years later Ferrari was winning races again on a fairly regular basis. That's pretty darn good.

I'm not disputing Ferrari was a mess because it was. Todt did well to get the right people in, however, I think to say he's responsible for the renaissance at Ferrari is slightly over the top: Schumacher, Brawn, and Byrne are the ones who should take the lions' share of the credit. Schumacher was basically allowed to assemble a team as he wanted and autonomy was given to the designers etc.

[deMuRe]

It's so refreshing to see intelligent discussion back on this board instead of "You Spanish B@stard" and "You English piece of sh!t"...

Thank you onelapdown and DD...

[Ron Dennis]

dont you start you aussie twat!


oops edited to add

[onelapdown]

dont you start you aussie twat!

Normal service has been resumed...

I can see where MacFan's comingfrom, in that Brawn, Byrne and Schu were the main factors in Ferrari's development into a proper front-running team again, but in the same way Barnard and Lauda were instrumental in turning McLaren from a team that was little better than an also-ran into the dominant team of the 80s. In both cases it boils down to the man making the decisions making the RIGHT decisions.

[texasmr2]

dont you start you aussie twat!

Normal service has been resumed... .

It does not take long does it? Please RD you can get your point across without resorting to childish name calling .