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Ron Dennis asked Brawn GP for car performance data in 2009!

Ron Dennis asked Brawn GP for car performance data in 2009!

04-10-2019 13:29
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Nicolás Quarles van Ufford

In Nick Fry's new book, 'Survive. Drive. Win.', the former Brawn GP boss revealed how McLaren's Ron Dennis asked him for secret information about his winning car, as McLaren were struggling following their title-winning season in 2008.

Dennis also famously got a hand of Ferrari's specifications and designs in 2007 during the Spygate controversy, which ended with McLaren getting a $100 million fine by the FIA.

Two years later, the team principal picked up the phone to ask Fry about the performance of the Brawn car, which had made an incredible start to the 2009 season.

"I wanted to ask a favour," Dennis asked Fry to the latter's recollection. "[The McLaren 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.”

"[I] wanted to know just how good our aero package was and exactly what numbers we were seeing in our testing in the wind tunnel." 

Unlike the Spygate controversy, however, this was a request about performance rather than specifications or design, making the whole nature of it completely different and not nearly as dangerous legally.

McLaren would go on to finish third in the constructors' championship behind Brawn and Red Bull Racing, with Lewis Hamilton taking both of the team's wins and three more podiums. Heikki Kovalainen managed a single P4-finish at the European Grand Prix but never climbed the podium.