F1: Dennis, Jordan in war of words over McLaren's struggles

Jordan (at right, ABOVE), F1 analyst for Britain's BBC, was highly critical of McLaren in a BBC Q&A with fans prior to last weekend's race, saying the team's management is to blame at least as much as Honda's power units for its uncompetitive form.

"You can say Honda is a mess but so are McLaren," Jordan said. "They have been a shadow of their former selves since they arrogantly stated that Lewis Hamilton would rue the day he left McLaren. Look how that has rebounded on them."

"That arrogance is still there at the top of McLaren. They are hopelessly off the pace and anyone who thinks it is just the engine is deluding themselves. The engine is a lot of it, but there are lots of other issues there. McLaren boss Ron Dennis sacked ex-team principal Martin Whitmarsh. But Whitmarsh never did the job of running that team as badly as Dennis is doing it now."

Dennis (left, ABOVE) fired back in an interview with Sky Sports' Martin Brundle.

“I consider Formula 1 a family, and families live in villages. And villages always have a village idiot. He fits the bill perfectly,” Dennis said of Jordan. He added that while the current plight of the team is "painful," he reains confident progress is being made.

“The progress is on chassis performance,” Dennis said. “We have a real challenge with our partners Honda. They are wrestling with reliability as well as performance; and when reliability becomes an issue, I’m afraid performance suffers.

“Honda has a huge resource and it’s applying it. We are obviously in deep discussion with them on a regular basis and of course it’s not pleasant for them.

“Is it painful? Of course, but we have to use pain as a motivating force. It’s a challenge but it’s the right challenge because without the support of a company such as Honda, I don’t think it’s possible to win the World Championship. Therefore we have to go through this pain to get to where we want to.”