[attach id=250204 size="medium"]Ron Dennis[/attach]

McLaren F1 racing team have strenuously denied a claim chairman Ron Dennis has been demoted.

A report in Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport suggested Dennis had now become a non-executive member of the board lacking any voting rights.

Under his leadership the report also remarked the sports car arm in McLaren Automotive was losing money running into hundreds of millions of pounds on the back of poor sales.

A McLaren spokesman, however, has told Press Association Sport Dennis is still chairman of the McLaren Group, under the umbrella of which the Formula One team operates, and McLaren Automotive with full voting privileges.

Dennis also retains his 25 per cent stake in the McLaren Group, and 15 per cent in McLaren Automotive, with sales of the MP4-12C strong and with the company “on track to return a profit this year”.

The spokesman added: “The timing of Ron’s elevation to chairman, whereby he relinquished a purely executive remit, was selected by Ron himself three years ago. It was confirmed contractually at that time and, as Ron planned, came into effect in January of this year.”

Dennis added: “There has absolutely been no suggestion of my role in the company changing beyond the change of roles that took place as per my contract in January.”

Dennis fully intends to at least see out his contract that runs until the end of 2014.