{"id":7440,"date":"2010-07-31T10:04:21","date_gmt":"2010-07-31T14:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=7440"},"modified":"2010-07-31T10:04:21","modified_gmt":"2010-07-31T14:04:21","slug":"dennis-hits-out-at-mclaren-drivers-car-criticisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/dennis-hits-out-at-mclaren-drivers-car-criticisms\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis hits out at McLaren drivers&#8217; car criticisms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a rare rebuke by the McLaren group chairman, Ron Dennis has criticised the F1 team&#8217;s drivers.<\/p>\n<p>In comments carried by British newspapers, the Woking based company&#8217;s shareholder and former long-time F1 principal publicly scolded Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button for criticising the qualifying pace of the MP4-25.<\/p>\n<p>Title leader Hamilton on Friday said his 2010 car is &#8220;massively down&#8221; on pace at the Hungaroring.<\/p>\n<p>But he and Button have each won two grands prix so far in 2010, and are at the top of the drivers&#8217; championship.\u00a0 McLaren also leads the constructors&#8217; standings, but the perception is that Red Bull and Ferrari have the fastest cars.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do have a very good race car,&#8221; insisted Dennis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I find it infuriating when my guys say &#8216;I wish I was on the front row&#8217; and build in the perception that we&#8217;re giving them cars less capable of winning races,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the nature of drivers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dennis&#8217; successor Martin Whitmarsh moved to play down Dennis&#8217; comments, amid rumours the 63-year-old might be keen to return to the F1 team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ron&#8217;s not actually involved in running the race team, but he is, of course, chairman of the group and a shareholder in it,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Former long-time McLaren driver David Coulthard wrote in a Telegraph column that it is &#8220;the first time&#8221; he can remember Dennis publicly criticise the team&#8217;s current drivers.<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a rare rebuke by the McLaren group chairman, Ron Dennis has criticised the F1 team&#8217;s drivers. In comments carried by British newspapers, the Woking based company&#8217;s shareholder and former long-time F1 principal publicly scolded Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button for criticising the qualifying pace of the MP4-25. Title leader Hamilton on Friday said his &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,153,154,491,5284,880],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7441,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7440\/revisions\/7441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}