McLaren taking Red Bull dispute to high court

UPDATE

Was that smoke we saw coming out of Ron Dennis' ears?

Speaking on Sunday, shortly before the Chinese Grand Prix, it was clear that the situation is likely to get a lot messier as Dennis and Horner took aim.

"There's always a way that you do things," Dennis told Sky Sports F1. "In our sport we have lots of technical regulations that we have to adhere to, and in life there are regulations, it's called the law. You have to adhere to it.

"We are obviously not too happy to be contracting people in a correct and professional way only to find that those contracts are disregarded and ignored."

Asked if the change of management at McLaren might have had anything to do with Fallows decision, Dennis insisted. "Not at all, in fact it wasn't signed with Martin (Whitmarsh) at all, it was one of our managers.

"At the end of the day, a contract is a contract," he continued. "Although it's life, there are still ways that you go through life, and what I'm particularly uncomfortable with is that people don't just change their minds, they are induced to change their minds. People being induced to break contracts is wrong, it's not the way to go through life.

"You can either ignore it or do something about it, but as with all things in law there are mechanisms available to everybody and we will go through the mechanism to bring out the truth.

Asked about the ongoing situation with Prodromou, Dennis said: "We respect gardening leave, everybody does. At the moment we just adhere by what's been agreed by Peter and Red Bull and just carry on doing what we're doing.

"We've recruited huge quantities of people over the last few months," he continued, "some have joined the team quickly, some are on gardening leave, it takes time to turn a team around, you want to build your technical competence and expertise. You change things, and we try to do things very professionally, very correctly. You run your company with an approach, with a standard, occasionally it's not the way you want it to be but you still stick to the rules and the regulations and when someone strays over them they take the consequences."

Asked if he and Horner really need to resort to law, whether they might sort it out over a cup of tea at the MTC, Dennis grinned and replied: "At the end of the day it's for Christian to reach out. We did everything to ascertain they knew that there was a contract, we sent them messages out and they were ignored. If you send an email to a company and you don't get a response, clearly the onus is on Christian to step up to the plate and sit down and talk.

"I am open to discuss anything," he continued. "I don't like conflict, I am a fighter but I don't like conflict. We are all here to win but there are ways to win, and I want to win the way McLaren wins whether it’s a Grand Prix or involves people or processes. My door is open, I'm a 24/7 guy, that's how you get the job done, he's got my mobile number, he can call me anytime."

Unsurprisingly, Horner sees it ever so slightly differently.

"I have the utmost respect for Ron," he told Sky Sports F1 on the grid shortly before the race. "But I'm not sure what he means. You can't force someone to work somewhere where they don't want to be.

"He (Fallows) signed a contract with McLaren with people who aren't there anymore and then decided he didn't want to go.

"That's the way it is," he continued. "It's not something that Ron's un-used to, it's happened to him quite often in the past."

Asked if it hurts when people question his ethics, Horner replied: "Not when it's from Ron Dennis."
Referring directly to Fallows, Horner added. "He's a good guy, he's been with Red Bull for quite a few years having come up through the ranks. He left, for his own reasons, but then obviously the situation changed with Peter going and he approached us and said 'the situation at McLaren is different now, can I come back, is there anything we can look at', and we started talking from there."

Asked if he was happy to go to court, Horner smiled and replied: "Absolutely".

Shortly after the pair were spotted on the grid chatting quite amiably and smiling. However, ignoring Fallows role in all this, that should change once they see replays of their individual interviews.

04/19/14 (GMM) Ron Dennis on Saturday confirmed McLaren will likely take its dispute with world champions Red Bull all the way to the High Court.

Earlier this month, new team boss Eric Boullier said the matter is "in the hands of our lawyers", after Red Bull announced it had successfully wooed Dan Fallows back to Milton Keynes.

Late last year, we reported that as well as Red Bull's aerodynamics chief Peter Prodromou, McLaren has also signed his 'deputy', Fallows.

But just as Fallows was ending his 'gardening leave' and due to start work at McLaren, Red Bull announced that he has in fact returned to work as the reigning world champions' newly-promoted 'head of aerodynamics'.

McLaren, however, insists it has a "legally binding contract" with Fallows.

"We regard this turn of events as completely unacceptable," Dennis, who revealed that Fallows had even moved to Surrey prior to returning to Red Bull, told us in a statement from Shanghai.

"He'd got no lawful right to change his mind in that way, because he'd already accepted our offer of employment and had already signed a contract in recognition of that," he insisted.

"Not surprisingly, when he failed to start work on the start date we'd agreed on, we called, texted and emailed him, but got no response.

"It was only when he was belatedly revealed via press release as Red Bull's head of aerodynamics that we finally understood what had happened.

"As a result of all of this, McLaren will probably have no realistic option other than to instigate a High Court action against Red Bull," Dennis confirmed.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner reacted to Dennis' comments on Saturday by saying the team will "vigorously" defend its re-employment of Fallows.

"We don't see there is any case to answer," he told Press Association.

"Perhaps Ron would have been better giving me a call."