Constructors' and drivers' world championships were won with Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen and Lewis Hamilton.

He is the Global Consultant for the state-owned China Minsheng Investment Group, the chairman for the UK Summit, and also former owner of Absolute Taste.

Before the merger with LVMH, Dennis was a major shareholder in the luxury watch maker TAG Heuer, along with his business partner, Mansour Ojjeh.

Dennis was born and raised in Woking, England, and studied motor vehicle engineering at Guildford Technical College.

For the 1969 season Rindt moved to Team Lotus; however, Dennis stayed on, choosing instead to work for Sir Jack Brabham.

Vlassopulos asked his friend Ken Grob, chairman of Alexander Howden, insurance brokers in London if he was interested in joining in.

Ultimately Dennis was unable to obtain sufficient funds to support the F1 venture, so Trundle continued with the Jessop-designed car while Vlassopulos and Grob took over ownership of the team, renamed Token Racing.

The recent poor performance of the former world championship-winning McLaren team had prompted Philip Morris executive John Hogan to initiate a takeover of the outfit by Dennis' Project Four.

[5] In addition to hiring Barnard to begin work on the team's revolutionary new carbon fibre composite chassis, the MP4/1, Dennis also successfully recruited the Porsche automobile firm to build the cars' engines from 1984-87.

The team had last won a grand prix with then defending World Champion James Hunt in 1977 and had finished a lowly ninth in the 1980 constructors' championship with John Watson and Alain Prost.

Even in those early days Dennis recognised the young Frenchman's potential but was unable to prevent him moving to the Renault team for 1981, a season that saw McLaren once again winning races.

In just four years Dennis had turned McLaren from an also-ran team into a front-runner and in 1984, with Barnard's revolutionary MP4/2 car his work was rewarded with 12 wins from 16 races and both drivers' and constructors' titles.

While neither Lauda nor Prost were the fastest combination of the year, that title going to reigning World Champion Nelson Piquet in his BMW powered Brabham BT53 who claimed 9 pole positions, the McLaren-TAG's reliability was unmatched.

As said by Clive James in commentary on the official video review of the Formula One season produced by FOCA: "Anything as fast as the McLarens fell apart, anything as reliable finished later.

Dennis made no secret that Johansson's seat was only temporary as his intention had been to sign the Brazilian Ayrton Senna (who had developed a close relationship with Honda while at Lotus in 1987) to partner double champion Prost.

Following a fall out in the aftermath of a broken promise between them at San Marino where Prost and Senna agreed before the race that whoever got to the first corner in front would not be challenged into that turn.

Prost angered Dennis when not only did he announce that he would be joining Ferrari for 1990, thus ending a highly successful six-year stint with McLaren, but also with his public comments about the team and Honda allegedly favoring Senna at the Italian Grand Prix.

A disappointing partnership with Peugeot in 1994 failed to yield the expected results and left Dennis searching to find a fourth engine partner in as many years.

The first couple of seasons the McLaren-Mercedes relationship was difficult, teething troubles with the engine, chassis challenges, and the driver for 1995 was the ageing Nigel Mansell who did not even fit into the car so Mark Blundell deputised.

[8] Mika Häkkinen gradually assumed leadership of the team but suffered severe head injuries in a crash at the end of the 1995 season, from which he eventually made a complete recovery.

By the mid-1990s Dennis was once more guiding his team towards domination of the sport, and in 1996 he approached Williams's star designer Adrian Newey to become technical director of McLaren.

Despite producing their strongest performance for several years and winning more grands prix than any of their rivals, McLaren were narrowly beaten in both championships by the Renault F1 team.

In December 2005, McLaren announced a title sponsorship deal with Vodafone estimated to be worth £500 million and the signing of World Champion Fernando Alonso, both to begin in 2007.

[13] However, it was announced in January 2007 that the Mumtalakat Holding Company (the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Bahrain) had purchased 15% each from both Dennis and Ojjeh.

[17] Dennis had stepped down as CEO of McLaren in 2009, handing over the reigns to Martin Whitmarsh,[18] but returned to his post in 2014 under the condition that he would seek investment to take a controlling interest in the company.

[26][27] In 2007, Dennis founded a charity, Dreamchasing, which aims to "help young people achieve their aspirations and, through their successes, to become inspirational role models for others".

[29][30][31] While acknowledging that the term has been used to criticise Dennis, the former editor-in-chief of F1 Racing, Matt Bishop, argues that "Ronspeak" is not a vice; rather, it is informative and accurate.

[36] During the 2015 United Kingdom general election campaign, Dennis was a signatory to a letter to The Daily Telegraph which praised the party's economic policies and claimed that "a change in course will threaten jobs and deter investment".