EXCLUSIVE: Jo Ramirez- ‘Alonso and Hamilton are school boys’

Many will recall the glory days of McLaren. Most McLaren fans will tell you that those days are not over and while Mercedes involvement with the team may be waning, the team affectionately known as Macca will continue to rise with drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

That’s not a far-fetched prophecy by any measure as the team know how to win and know what it takes to win at the highest level of motorsport. No one encapsulates that intimate knowledge better than former McLaren boss Jo Ramirez. Ramirez is a legacy man in the F1 world having served over four decades with teams such as Tyrrell and McLaren. His character and skill have been admired throughout those 40 years by most of the paddock and it’s no surprise that we found him equally candid, charming and gracious when we met up with him at the AUTOSPORT International show this past weekend.

One could forgive Ramirez for having a since of romanticism over the halcyon days of McLaren in the late 1980’s. Specifically 1988 remains a high water mark for the team as it won 15 of the 16 races that season. Add to that astounding record the fact that you had Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost as your drivers!

Andrew Middlemore and Mark Hallam caught up with Ramirez this weekend and asked him about the state of F1 and his feelings on McLaren’s situation and future. Be sure you download the ASI podcasts as there are some terrific interviews with Clive Chapman, Jo Ramirez, Gary Anderson, Martin Donnelly, Jenson Button and more.

Most poignant was his description of the rivalry between Senna and Prost and how having two icons of motorsport as teammates presented the public with a terrific show. Ramirez was quick to say that McLaren never had team orders and that was the magic of that time. Pure competition by two legends.

“We managed to do it without cheating the public” Ramirez told Formula1blog.com, “We gave them two perfect cars like two drops of water and it was up to the drivers, without team orders, to battle on the track”.

When asked about the parallel to the 2007 season with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, Ramirez commented:

“A couple of years ago we had the problem with Alonso and Hamilton and people kind of compared it to Senna and Prost” said Ramirez, “it was nothing. Alonso and Hamilton were two school boys. Senna and Prost had so much charisma and so much personality. There were people who would stop and say Wow! That’s Senna”.

Ramirez described Senna and Prost as having an aura around them because of who they were and what they had achieved. As for the Alonso and Hamilton issue, Ramirez said:

“I am very, very surprised and sorry to see that Ron Dennis didn’t manage them” said Ramirez.

I had ran a story about Schumacher’s return being good for F1 in which I stated that there was still a lack of charisma and presence in F1 even with talents such as Raikkonen, Hamilton, Alonso, Massa and Vettel. I, understandably, received some disdain for those comments and while I admit to a certain level of fan boy praise when it comes to Schumacher, I have to admit that Ramirez is correct. The current crop of drivers lacks the charisma and presence that Senna and Prost had. Equally, Schumacher had that presence and that was the crux of my argument…so called.

There is little doubt that Ramirez felt the Alonso and Hamilton issue was really a non-issue compared to Senna and Prost. I know he means no disrespect toward Hamilton or Alonso in calling them school boys but compared to Senna and Prost, they were. They were young men finding their way around the sport. Not two veterans with massive skill, talent and charisma having defeated F1 and all comers. A marked difference that I believe Ramirez was trying to explain.

Another interesting comment during the Ramirez interview was his assumption that the Mercedes/McLaren relationship may be waning but in the end, McLaren would build their engines in-house. This was bolstered by some rumors that perhaps McLaren might have been interested in BMW’s closing F1 engine department when the German car maker left the sport. A rumor, which must be added, that has not come true.

McLaren is a massive organization with tremendous resources and while CEO Ron Dennis has made no bones about his becoming the British Ferrari, one element missing is the engine. McLaren has met great success with a customer engine arrangement but it has also held them hostage on certain occasions. Developing their own engine would free them to become the full operation much like Ferrari enjoys today.

This brings us to the “spygate” issue and Ron Dennis/McLaren’s perceived war with then FIA president Max Mosley. Ramirez was very quick to point out that there was a secret or veiled war between Mosely and Dennis and that the Renault spy scandal was far worse than the McLaren/Ferrari issue but nothing came from it:

“What happened between Mercedes McLaren and Renault was a lot worse but the FIA never did anything against Renault. Nothing!” Ramirez said, “that clearly showed that there was a vendetta against Ron for whatever he did in his first life or whatever”.

According to Ramirez, Renault had McLaren’s information on every computer at their F1 facility which contained information on both cars. The information gained was complete and stunning in scope according to Ramirez and greatly eclipsed the information that McLaren had on Ferrari. As a Ferrari fan, it makes you wonder just how much of the Renault resurgence and victory in 2006 was helped by Ferrari design. I jest, of course.