Lewis Hamilton and mentor Ron Dennis have made moves to patch up their broken relationship, in the aftermath of the 2008 Formula 1 world champion’s defection from McLaren to Mercedes.
After McLaren and team ‘supremo’ Dennis built Hamilton’s Formula 1 career from boyhood, it emerged that relationship crumbled spectacularly last year as the 2008 world champion decided to switch to Mercedes.
Dennis, however, said early this week that the British driver will always be “part of the McLaren family”.
“Last year I didn’t seriously seek to prevent his efforts to explore new pastures with Mercedes – perhaps it was a necessary part of his maturation,” said the McLaren chairman.
“But I’ll always remember his time with us very fondly, just as I’m very proud of having been McLaren’s CEO and team principal when he became world champion with us in 2008.”
When asked about Dennis at Monza on Thursday, Hamilton revealed that he recently had a “nice chat” on the phone with his former boss.
“We spoke for about an hour. It was a really good conversation. I don’t think there are any issues there personally,” he is quoted by the Daily Mail.
“He has had such a big role in my life so I felt it was important to connect.” Subbed by AJN.