F1 team hit by carp chaos as horny fish 'breed like buggery'

Two randy carp kiss in the pond outside the MTC in Woking — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

F1 team hit by carp chaos as horny fish 'breed like buggery'

How one F1 team's wind tunnel encouraged frantic fish breeding

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Saturday 30 May 2026 20:57

F1 history is littered with wild stories, but this one might just take the ~~biscuit~~ fish food.

In 2026, McLaren are the reigning constructors' and drivers' champions thanks to Britain's newest title holder, Lando Norris, but it wasn't always like that.

Thanks to this year's chassis and power unit regulations being completely overhauled, the squad now run by Andrea Stella and overseen by McLaren CEO Zak Brown are doing their best to work their way back up to the top after a reshuffle of the competitive order has seen Mercedes take an early lead.

Article continues under video

But a decade prior to their back-to-back team title success, McLaren reached a new low and by the time the 2015 championship came to a close, they found themselves second from last in the constructors' standings.

And former longtime McLaren engineer Mark Slade has now revealed how Ron Dennis' often questionable financial decisions arguably led to the squad's struggles.

F1 HEADLINES: Horner 'in return talks' as team boss opens door for Mercedes split

Ron Dennis caused McLaren carp chaos with F1 wind tunnel

Slade joined McLaren F1 team in 1991 and took up his first trackside role as assistant race engineer to modern punditry legend, Martin Brundle.

The Brit then became Mika Hakkinen's race engineer in 1998, helping him to his two consecutive world championship victories, remaining with McLaren working under Ron Dennis and with Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Heikki Kovalainen as a race engineer until he departed for Renault in 2010.

As a result, Slade was at the centre of McLaren when they opted to open their new headquarters, now known as the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) in 2004.

But things didn't go as smoothly as planned with the build becoming increasingly expensive.

In a recent conversation with F1 journalist and former team manager, Peter Windsor, Slade discussed McLaren's unusual HQ setup on YouTube, revealing that the project became so expensive that the team were left with no choice but to rely on an old wind tunnel.

"The wind tunnel that was installed in MTC was originally designed for the McLaren factory that never happened at Lyden Hill, and that project actually started in about 1991," said Slade.

"So that wind tunnel they spent a lot of money on designing and they actually built it and then it was put in storage because they didn't have anywhere to install it. So when MTC was built... it was very expensive because of its location. It was built on on basically wet waterlog ground, so the cost of building that facility was absolutely enormous and I think they just decided that they would use the wind tunnel they already had which was the one that had been designed in 1991... I just don't think despite McLaren being McLaren at that time, didn't have the money to build a bigger one."

Not only was McLaren's wind tunnel massively outdated, but it also triggered issues with the exotic fish imported by legendary F1 team boss Ron Dennis, who Slade felt was mostly to blame for the bizarre issues that unfolded at the MTC.

Discussing McLaren's issues at the time, Slade admitted: "It came down to money and not investing in the right things, I'll be honest. I have huge respect for Ron for what he achieved, but I would say that in the 2000s and onwards, big mistakes started to be made in terms of priorities and that led to the disaster that McLaren was by the mid sort of 2014/'15/'16. A lot of those mistakes in long-term planning came home to roost."

F1 boss Ron Dennis oversaw multiple championship-winning spells at McLaren.

So, how did these issues manifest you may be wondering? In the form of randy fish of course.

Painting a picture of chaos at MTC caused by the outdated wind tunnel, Slade continued: "Ron did have fish put in the lake and one problem was I think they were carp and apparently carp are triggered to breed at a particular time of the year by the water temperature rising where in their native environment.

"The problem at MTC was that the warm water coming out of the wind tunnel was always at that temperature. So the fish were breeding like buggery and they used to actually have to get people to come along and take fish out because there were so many of these bloody fish in the lake. So that was one problem."

The engineer then turned his attention to another unusual issue that held McLaren back at their HQ, adding: “Algae used to grow on the sides. So Ron used to employ Eastern European people to take wheelbarrows and get in Wellington boots and walk into the lake and clean up the algae from the lake that was stopping the cooling system working properly. So that was quite amusing.

"That was alongside the people who also did the pebble turning in the car park because when the pebbles alongside the walkways got dirty, they used to come along and they used to turn the pebbles over to the clean side and then after a number of weeks, they would then employ a pebble washer to clean the pebbles alongside," he concluded, prompting laughter from Windsor.

Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

View full biography

F1 McLaren Peter Windsor Ron Dennis