McLaren denies Dennis now sole team owner

McLaren has denied Bernie Ecclestone’s claim that Ron Dennis has bought back majority ownership of the Woking based team.

The F1 supremo told business journalist Christian Sylt earlier this week that Bahrain’s investment vehicle Mumtalakat has "sold the shares to Ron".

"He has got to pay for them by a certain date," Ecclestone was quoted by Forbes. "If he doesn’t pay he will obviously take them back but at the moment Ron would own the company."

Ecclestone hinted the same was also true of Dennis’ long-time business partner Mansour Ojjeh, but he said McLaren was in good hands as it enters the Honda era.

A McLaren spokesman, however, told us that Ecclestone’s comments were "inaccurate".

"No transaction has taken place," he said, "but the shareholders have had discussions on how to best facilitate and enhance the future growth of the McLaren Group.

"When and if a transaction takes place, it is not envisioned that the current shareholders will exit McLaren completely, and announcements would be made at the appropriate time."

In other McLaren news, the team spokesman also told us that the Honda-powered 2015 chassis, the MP4-30, has passed all of its mandatory FIA crash tests.