Dennis: no Kimi clamp down

McLaren boss Ron Dennis has made it clear that he will not go beyond his team boss remit and start interfering with the private life of his drivers, despite the mild controversy caused over the winter by the antics of star driver Kimi Raikkonen.

The Finn grabbed the headlines in the tabloid press with a drunken night in the Canary Islands, when he was photographed sleeping on an inflatable dolphin, and was later claimed to have made a spectacle of himself in a London lap-dancing club.

But despite Dennis making it clear that his team was not impressed with Raikkonen's behaviour, he believes it would be wrong to tell the Finn how to lead his life.

Speaking to Nigel Roebuck in an exclusive interview in this week's Autosport magazine, Dennis made it clear that although he did not support some of Raikkonen's winter excesses, he refuses to clamp down on his drivers' private life.

"There's no question about it: Kimi's behaviour is not the way that we would like him to behave, and we have talked extensively together about it,"said Dennis. "But I've meticulously been into each and every time he's had this problem - and on the last occasion particularly 90 percent of what was reported clearly did not happen.

"And those parts that had an element of truth were magnified out of all proportion. The problem now, of course, is that he doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, because he was partying excessively in the Canary Islands, and a picture was taken of him fooling around with an inflatable toy - a dolphin, I might add!

"However, I will not tell - I categorically refuse to tell - either him or any other driver how to run their lives. Why? Because that never works. All you can do is lay everything out very clearly, and give people an understanding of what is the right way to go, and what is the wrong way.

"But I'm happy now with the direction in which Kimi is going, and I'm equally confident that both of the drivers know what is expected of them as team-mates. I think we're for, hopefully, a successful season because they're both great drivers, but, more importantly, I think they're going to be great team-mates.”

For Nigel Roebuck's full interview with Ron Dennis see this week's Autosport Magazine