The British Grand Prix offered Atlas F1 editor Biranit Goren the opportunity to mix and mingle with the Royal Family of McLaren: the Dennises. And what an eventful weekend they had on offer for her! Lots of pitstop action right under her seat, a lovely ice cream stand and mini burgers in the Palace, good bedtime stories about naughty cars, and a meeting face to face with the heir to the throne - even if his mother doesn't want him to become a race driver. She came back convinced that McLaren are going to surprise everyone in 2003, that Ron Dennis is a shy and sweet man, and that she isn't likely to ever receive another invitation for a weekend with the Dennises...

He Said

Row L, seat 21 at the media center of the British Grand Prix - a huge open space that can house about four hundred journalists - is located right next to the big window that overlooks the finish line and the grandstands. It also happens to be right above the McLaren pits, overlooking the pitstop area of McLaren, with Ferrari's and Williams's in sight. On last weekend's British Grand Prix, it was arguably the best seat in the Silverstone house.

The McLaren pits had the most action, with no less than eight pitstops for David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen. In the words of Coulthard himself, "this is a British Grand Prix I would prefer to forget." That is the tame version of what Coulthard thought of his afternoon drive in the typical British summer weather; his mechanics got the F-rated version over the pit-to-car radio during the race.

Whoever you support in Formula One, there's no room for gloating or gleeing when a grand team like McLaren makes every conceiveable mistake in their home Grand Prix, with family, employees and fans watching their every move. There is also the undeniable truth that the British Grand Prix was the exception rather than the norm, as far as McLaren go. "We will learn from our mistakes and try hard to ensure that they are not repeated in future races," team boss Ron Dennis concluded at the end of the day, and you just know that in Ronspeak, those are genuine fighting words.

McLaren are going through an interesting season this year, and not one that the casual fan could necessarily comprehend until the passing of time. The team has gone through a slump: after four straight seasons of being a Championship contender and finishing first or second in both the drivers and constructors standings, McLaren are unlikely to finish the season anywhere better than third in the Constructors' Championship, and possibly fourth or fifth in the Drivers' World Championship.

On the face of it, this would seem like a team losing its direction. Yet, the almost-calmness with which all parties involved in the team seem to accept the reality, coupled with some pre-season suggestions from high officials, suggests that 2002 was always going to be a year of development and regrouping, towards a much bigger and serious challenge in 2003.

If this was indeed a plan, one can only salute Ron Dennis for his foresight: who would have thought before the season began that Ferrari would produce the most dominant car in at least a decade, a car that shadowed any genuine effort from any other team? And, with the continuity assured at Ferrari for 2003 at least, you would need more than just a winter break to launch a serious challenge against the Italians.

Williams took to the challenge with a fourth test driver; so far, this added effort has not paid dividends and the team - while running a secure second in the Constructors' Championship - can only boast one win to date, and that in a race where the F2002 wasn't even entered.

McLaren, on the other hand, run extended testings, although you wouldn't know about it because they are all secret, closed sessions. Like the one held at Paul Ricard last week, after the British Grand Prix. Haven't heard about it? Well, that's just what McLaren want. And, you can only assume that it wasn't just a straight-forward 2002 car they were running at the French track.

Taking all that into account, it is perhaps understandable why McLaren are likely to announce next week, at the German Grand Prix, that they have retained both Coulthard and Raikkonen for next year. For one, continuity at a time of development is ultra important; and, quite frankly, the drivers line-up was never in doubt, really.

There was always the question whether Mika Hakkinen would return to Formula One next year, but apparently that would have come at the expense of Kimi Raikkonen, who in turn would have remained with the team in a testing role. Coulthard, on the other hand, was never seriously put in doubt.

But Hakkinen is not going to come back, the rumours at Silverstone suggested. Why? Because he's happy. Because he hasn't been this happy in a long time. Ask any driver, and he'll tell you he will continue to drive as long as he wants to do it and there is someone willing to let him do it. It's only the lucky ones who are able to walk away voluntarily from the sport, knowing full well that they could obtain a top seat if they wanted to. Mika, in that respect, is a very lucky guy.

McLaren, nevertheless, haven't left us without anything to talk about this year. And while one superb win in Monaco had put doubts to rest on the team's commitment to winning, other off-track innovations gave the fans plenty of fuel for sportsbar debates.

On Thursday afternoon at Silverstone, for example, a small crowd of journalists flocked to the vicinity of my L21 seat at the media center - they all wanted to see the filming of George Lucas's new Star Wars movie, starring the McLaren mechanics in space-age astronaut's coolsuits.

This wonderful innovation, the first of its kind in Formula One, features airtight silver suits with a backpack that sends cool air all over the body. Granted, in places like Malaysia, where the heat and humidity is absolutely unbearable, such suits could be a real benefit to the hard working mechanics, that is if they overcome the lumpy movements and odd looks.

To the futuristic vision was also added this year the new team personnel outfits - shiny, bright silver clothes - and of course the monument of monuments, McLaren's new communications center, replacing the traditional back-to-back team motorhomes.

The new communications center is an eye popping beast: it's the first thing that draws your attention in the paddock, and it makes the neighbouring motorhomes of Ferrari and Williams seem almost like slums in comparison. But, truth be told, it's also one of the more pleasant places to sit in - extremely spacious and full of gadgets and refreshments at all times.

According to speculations, 'Ron's World' - as some of the media members tagged the new place - cost $7 million to design and build. Whether that is indeed the sum, McLaren can add an additional $25,000 to the bill from their Silverstone outing.

The team arrived at the paddock to discover the tarmac at their location is uneven, therefore the construction had to be lifted up on jacks, leaving the steps a few feet short of the ground. So special steps had to be made overnight - chalk down $15,000. But the added, new steps meant McLaren exceeded their alloted space in the Paddock Club, which in turn awarded them a $10,000 fine from FOM, Bernie Ecclestone's company who is in charge of the paddock Law & Order.

Yet all this hassle is for a motorhome. Not a car, not an engine, not a new wind tunnel. In Spain, one race after McLaren launched the new center, a banner among the crowd read: "Wake Up McLaren: Smaller Motorhome and Better Results!" And, considering that banner did not necessarily represent a freak opinion, it was perhaps as good a time as any to ask Ron Dennis himself to explain the philosophy behind all those new eye candy gadgets - and why they must be launched at a time when the team's on-track performance isn't at its best.

"Hopefully you won't bite my head off for asking this," I preface my question to Dennis, once the chance arises to bring the topic up, during Saturday's media briefing (which McLaren so nicely euphemises as "Meet the Team").

Dennis looks at me and smiles. He seems more amused than irritated, really. "Well, I'm not going to bite your head off," he says, to the chuckles of the media members surrounding the room, some of which are now looking at me with the face of 'ooh you are going to get it now...'

"I'm trying to think how to give you the most concise answer, something that I am not well known for," Dennis continues. He's still thinking - you can see him devising the proper reply, taking his time as he utters the words. And then, it snaps. And it pours.

"Do you think that it would be a better proposition to a sponsor if all our transporters were dirty?" he retaliates. "If all our mechanics were in last year's clothes? If we all sat in 6-year old motorhomes? Is that going to be an environment in which you would want to invest?

"I will never excuse the fact that we want to be the best at everything. And there's an understandable lack of understanding - not by everybody here, but certainly by you - and I'm not biting your head back, I'm just saying that is an understandable lack of understanding - on the fact that the efforts we put into everything are extreme.

"The people who are working on these aspects of our organisation don't have responsibilities with respect to the race cars. It's the marketing, advertising and design company, with 60 employees who are expected to work hard and come up with new ideas of better ways of doing things. And most of the things - this facility, for example - was two years in creation [before it was launched]. We were winning races when we started to design it, and just because we're not winning races doesn't mean we're going to drop it.

"Whilst it does not make your car go faster, it is important to look the best and you should try to be the best at everything. Don't ask me to be uncomfortable about it, because I'm not.

"I think that there was an understandable caution coming from many people about this [communications center's] functionality. I said it is an open door [to the media] and I think a lot of you were surprised to see how open it is. And that actually represents a change in approach to how we run the team.

"So if you expect me to be apologetic for the common desire of this team to be the best at everything it does, don't expect me to be that way. That's what we exist for - to be the best."

Them's fighting words! And remember, keep your eyes on McLaren in 2003!

She Said

If Ron Dennis didn't scare the living daylight out of me on Saturday afternoon, it was probably because I am not likely to forget the images of a soft and tender Dennis, fooling around with a bunch of infants and children a couple of days before.

Formula One, to a large extent, is a grown-ups' sport. It requires a deeper understanding than what the eyes see; it also doesn't allow most of the children of the world to take part in similar events in school or during the weekend, as football or swimming or althetics do. And, you're more likely to find bare-bellied models hanging around the paddock than six year old children, which is why the sight of dozens of kids hurling around in glee at the McLaren motorhome on Thursday was a rare sight indeed.

The occasion was the launch of Mac & Lauren, a new series of books for young children, featuring the adventures of Formula One cars around the Grand Prix circuits of the world. The author of these books is Lisa Dennis, the McLaren boss's wife.

McLaren didn't spare any effort in providing the books a grand launch, which included a balloon guy occupying dozens of children that were driven to the paddock from Honeypot - a special home for deprived children, which the Dennises support through charity. It included every possible refreshment a child would want - be it miniature hamburgers and hot dogs, or large jars of sweets, or an ice cream stand. And, it says something of the Dennises stature in the paddock that even World Champion Michael Schumacher lent a hand in making the launch a success, posing with the guest children and Lisa's books, alongside many other drivers, including Juan Pablo Montoya, Eddie Irvine and Jenson Button (not to mention all three McLaren drivers, of course).

If they were happy to help, it has to be due to Lisa Dennis's charms. She is, undoubtedly, one of the most amicable women in the Formula One paddock, a down-to-earth, straight forward person who befriends easily and does not let racing rivalry be the judge of a person's value.

It would be all too easy to be cynical about the agenda behind the Mac & Lauren books - to point out that the McLaren duo are the 'good guys' while almost everyone else are the bad guys; to suspect that the books are a clever PR tool to advance McLaren to a wider (and longer lasting) audience. But the fact of the matter is that these books are the first serious attempt made at introducing Formula One to children - and there's nothing lighthearted or superficial about the efforts put into these books, be it by Dennis herself or by publisher Simon and Schuster.

Two books of the series have already been released this week. Fifteen more - in total one for every current GP track - will be released over the course of the next five years (the next book due in September). And, Dennis is already holding negotiations on the rights to make a cartoon series for TV based on these books. If you're a parent to a four or five year old child who doesn't understand why every other weekend you send him to Grandma, these books might just be the thing for some Sunday afternoon bonding.

On Saturday, a couple of days after the launch and after spending a night in bed reading the four books made available to the media, I sat with Lisa Dennis at the top floor of the McLaren communications center. And, if I had any plans to grill her about her high-profile and at times controversial husband, she made these questions virtually impossible when she walked in with her 11 year old son, Christian, the second of the Dennises' three children. After all, who could bad mouth even in the slightest a father in the presence of his proud child?

Christian is also very proud of his mother, no doubt. When I ask him what he thinks of the Mac & Lauren books, he gleams with sheer happiness. "oh, they're very good," he says, and when I ask him if he helped his mother write them, he replies "no" almost simultaneously with Lisa herself, who exclaims "yes!" - and it won't be the first time they'll disagree in the course of the interview...

"I started with the idea about 5 years ago," Lisa Dennis explains the reasoning for her creation, "and it came about because I was trying to put my two worlds together - we have three children and we have motor racing, and I found myself answering their questions about things that were happening, and I thought that it would be nice to teach young kids about motor racing. So that's where the idea came from, but it's been some time."

BG: There aren't that many - or any at all - F1 related books for children. It's quite a market niche, surely?

Lisa Dennis: "No, there aren't many. And, one of my kids' favourite book when they were little was 'Thomas the Tank Engine', so I sort of thought, yes, it's Thomas the Tank Engine for motor racing - trying to keep it with lots of facts while still being fiction."

BG: The plot of the books has a lot of intrigues and spying and unsportsmanlike behaviour. Those are things we see in F1, of course, but hardly in such a concentrated fashion as they exist in the books. I was wondering why you went on that route? Why present Formula One in such light?

Lisa Dennis: "Well I think kids like all of that, but the books do really have a moral in that the good guy usually wins, and also some of the characters - like Bruno and Maddy, who are quite naughty - do learn and in some of the future books they'll actually be doing a good thing as well and even win in races."

BG: But in reality the kids are going to see Formula One where in fact the good guys don't always win...

Lisa Dennis: "No, the good guys don't always win in life. I always tell my kids, when they say 'it's not fair' - I say, life's not fair."

BG: I'm assuming that in some of the cars, there's something to be found in real life people in Formula One. Can you reveal some of these?

Lisa Dennis: "Mac & Lauren are obviously based on McLaren, and as far as the others - I've taken bits and pieces of personalities but they are not specifically anyone in F1."

BG: Well, Wills and Harry seem to bear a striking resemblance to Williams...

Lisa Dennis: "You know, it's quite funny how everyone is having a different guess on who's who!"

BG: I must admit the first thing I did was try and find Michael Schumacher

Lisa Dennis: "And? Did you find him?"

BG: I'd like to think I didn't

Lisa Dennis: "I don't think you would, I like Michael very much."

BG: Really?!?

Lisa Dennis: "Yes, I do. I like him as a man, as a family man, so if you did find him in my books you would only find positive things."

Lisa is a regular fixture in the McLaren garage, travelling with the team to many of the races over the year. She and Ron are considered particularly close, and an old-time employee of McLaren says she's the best thing to happen to him. "Ron is different when she's around," the employee said.

The two met in a sponsor's dinner party at the 1982 Long Beach Grand Prix. A year later American-born Lisa moved to England, taking up interior design studies, and the two married in 1985. They live in Surrey, not far from McLaren's Woking factory, and nearby Adrian Newey's family - close friends of the Dennises and in times of need a technical advisor to author Lisa Dennis.

"Adrian gave me a lot of technical information and answered a lot of my questions," Dennis says. "He helped me the most, but also all the mechanics - they were great in explaning things, or showing me how things work." Her husband, however, contributed his share to the books. "Ron is my business manager," she laughs. "We're very supportive of each other. He helped with the publishing contract, and he loves the books. They make him smile and laugh."

BG: I have to say, when I saw him with the kids on Thursday, he looked like a completely different person to what we the public know of him - very soft, very emotional and tender

Lisa Dennis: "Yes, his private side is very different to his public side."

BG: Tell me about it...

Lisa Dennis: "Well, that's why it's private... But yes, it's true that Ron loves kids."

BG: Do you see your own children grow up into motor racing?

Christian and Lisa both smirk at the question. "I don't think so," Lisa says. "I think they'll go their own way. They're interested in motor racing but I think they'll find their own paths in lives."

BG: What, no racers in the family?

Christian nods and Lisa looks at him disapprovingly, as she says: "Well, he's pretty quick in go-karts, I have to admit, but I wouldn't really want him in motor racing - he wouldn't have my blessing on that one. But we'll wait and see."

BG: Ron, while being one of the most important people in Formula One, can be at times a controversial figure. Does it pain you when you read unsympathetic reports about him?

Lisa Dennis: "I don't actually read it. There's a few articles that have been written that I know were unpleasant, but I just don't actually read them and I don't want to know about it.

"I think anyone who's been in the team would probably give you a completely different opinion about Ron. I think that he will probably open up to people who he is completely comfortable with and he trusts, and if he doesn't then you won't see that side of him. And also he's quite shy!"

BG: Do you sometimes wish that he would hand over the responsibility of the team to someone else and be more at home?

Lisa Dennis: "No, no. It's his life, he's very good at it. He manages still to spend time with his family, with us, so I'm happy with the mixture. He does it very well."

If F1 fans heard Dennis's name before - and she's not one to seek media attention, in fact the Silverstone interviews were her first, she says - it was probably related to the aftermath of Mika Hakkinen's accident in Adelaide 1995, at the Australian Grand Prix.

Much has been written about Hakkinen's accident and just how severe it was. Too little was said about the important role both Ron and Lisa Dennis as well as future wife Erja played in his speedy recovery.

In his biography, "Doing What Comes Naturally", author Christopher Hilton describes how Mika woke up into full consciousness for the first time with Lisa, Ron and Erja at his bedside, with Lisa holding his hand. In reality, the Finn probably owes a great deal to those three.

The Hakkinens remain in touch with the Dennises. They are good friends and probably closer than any family of a team owner and that of a driver ever became. So it begs the question, then, whether Lisa Dennis would like to see Mika return to racing.

She doesn't respond to this immediately. Instead, she ponders on the topic before finally saying: "I want him to do whatever he wants to do, whatever will make him happy. I am very fond of Mika, and I was there when he had his accident, and so part of me likes him as a nice, healthy, happy daddy, having a wonderful life. He's a fantastic racing driver too, no doubt, so I guess I have mixed feelings about it."

Later, much later, when the interview is all over and we're about to walk out of the door, she would stop at her heels and turn around. "I want to ask you a question," she says. "Would you like to see Mika come back?"

Only a day later it dawned on me that I probably let her down with my response: she was asking as a mother and a wife. I replied as a selfish fan.

Oh well, I suppose I shouldn't really expect to get an invitation for another weekend with the Dennises...