McLaren F1 says CEO Ron Dennis stepping aside

LONDON - McLaren chief executive Ron Dennis relinquished all Formula One roles Thursday amid the fallout from a lying scandal that could lead to the team being banned from the world championship.

The 61-year-old Dennis' resignation is part of a restructuring of the McLaren Group that will see him leading a new independent division that will launch a sports road car in 2011.

Martin Whitmarsh, who replaced Dennis as F1 team principal in January, will now take on his CEO role and answer to the board on all F1 matters.

The announcement came with McLaren embroiled in one of the biggest crises in its 45-year existence.

The British team has been summoned to F1's ruling body in Paris on April 28 to face charges of bringing the sport into disrepute.

FIA said McLaren deliberately misled stewards at the Australian Grand Prix last month, lying to race officials that it had not given 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton instructions to let Toyota's Jarno Trulli overtake him while the pair were behind the safety car.

Dennis said the timing of his exit was "purely coincidental," but acknowledged that FIA president Max Mosley and F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone would welcome his departure.

"I admit I'm not always easy to get on with," Dennis said at McLaren headquarters in Woking near London. "I admit I've always fought hard for McLaren in Formula 1. I doubt if Max Mosley or Bernie Ecclestone will be displeased by my decision, but no one asked me to do it. It was my decision.

"Equally, I was the architect of today's restructure of the McLaren Group. Again, no one asked me to do it. It was my decision."

FIA said McLaren twice passed up opportunities to rectify evidence it knew was false in Melbourne. Hamilton was stripped of his third-place finish, but McLaren could face sanctions in Paris that include being banned.

Dennis first became involved in F1 in 1996, working alongside driver Jochen Rindt at the Cooper Formula One team.

After stints at Brabham and projects in Formula Two and Three, the 34-year-old Dennis returned to F1 in 1981 with McLaren and assumed full control of the company.

Dennis will now become executive chairman of McLaren Automotive and lead the new sports car business.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)