Emotional Ron Dennis reveal comes to light amid McLaren favouritism concerns

David Coulthard has revealed the day Ron Dennis acknowledged he had “paternal feelings” towards his team-mate Mika Hakkinen after years of questioning the team boss’ perceived favouritism.

The story started back in 1995, the season before Coulthard teamed up with Hakkinen at McLaren.

David Coulthard felt Ron Dennis favoured McLaren team-mate Mika Hakkinen

That year Hakkinen suffered a high-speed crash in Friday afternoon qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix when his McLaren suffered a rear-left puncture just before the fast Brewery Bend corner.

Losing control of the McLaren and hitting a kerb, he became airborne and crashed heavily into a tyre barrier at 120mph with his helmet striking his steering wheel.

Hakkinen suffered a fractured skull and trackside medics had to perform an emergency tracheotomy as he was unresponsive and had a blocked airway.

He was in a coma for a few days but would go on to make a full recovery, returning to the F1 grid less than four months later for the start of the 1996 championship with Coulthard alongside him as his new team-mate.

But despite spending eight years with McLaren and winning 12 Grands Prix, Coulthard felt that his team boss Dennis favoured Hakkinen.

After years of asking that question, Dennis finally acknowledged he had “paternal feeling” towards Hakkinen after nearly losing him in that Adelaide crash.

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“I never thought he was getting better kit. And to that point, the two number one mechanics would choose the engine numbers from a bag,” he told the Beyond the Grid podcast.

“I have to assume those engine numbers were accurate, and then they actually correlated with the numbers on the actual engines. I never checked. You know, there’s a point where you have to trust people.

“In those days, we would have a new engine each day, we would have a new engine for qualifying. So engines were incredibly important.

“You could have with the development race an engine that just had 10 horsepower or more. And that made a difference.

“We had one spare car, I had equal opportunity to have the spare car across the year, it was psychological more than anything, the brain controls the body.

“And it took me many years with Ron, many meetings of me going, ‘you’re supporting me, come on’. He’d be like, ‘No’.

“And I explained to him in one of those conversations in his office. I went, ‘it’s like you’ve got two children, twins, and they’re both going to run the company for a month.

“‘One of them you bring in on a Sunday and give him a briefing on how to do it, then he or she gets let loose. And the other one, you just say bring them in on a Monday and let them get on with it. It may only be a subtle as that, but it just seems you’re happier when Mika wins’.

“And then eventually, after several years, he went, ‘I nearly lost Mika in my car. I’ve never lost a driver in my car and I have a paternal feeling towards him.

“‘I went to the hospital in Adelaide 1995, he’s connected to various breathing apparatus, he’s in an induced coma. And we’ve had no idea whether we’ve lost the driver, or whether he’s coming back’.

“And when he told me that it was like sort of a weight being lifted, because instead of me thinking he’s supporting him more psychologically, and he’s denying it, the minute he acknowledged it’s possible that he has this deep feeling, it made complete rational sense.

“And it then meant instead of focusing and fixating on the bits I was feeling I wasn’t getting, I looked at the bits that I was getting, which was a car, a contract, an opportunity, a frank conversation, it changed everything.”

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