Gypsy King

The remarkable new 'Gitana' is a few weeks away from launch...

When Ron Dennis, the then CEO of McLaren, revealed the Norman Foster + Partners designed Mclaren Technology Centre in Woking back in 2005, it was a moment that changed the perception of Formula 1. The days of greasy mechanics working in sheds with leaky roofs was over. You could eat your dinner off the floor of the workbays and woe betide anyone that spilt oil on the gunmetal grey floor. Dennis was a stickler for order to such a degree that even screw heads had to be vertically aligned to avoid attracting dust, and he openly admitted that he was “difficult to live with” in an employment tribunal and had a “certain level of OCD.” From the outside looking in, Ron Dennis was the blueprint for how car manufacturing, albeit racing cars, should be done.