Ron Dennis is leaving McLaren and there is no escaping the feeling that the timing of his departure is deeply unfortunate.

In announcing his decision to step away from McLaren's F1 commitments today, Dennis brought to an end a 43-year involvement in the top echelon of motorsport that has delivered exultation and anguish in almost equal measure.

The final two years of Dennis' time in the sport will taint his legacy, with the so-called spy-gate scandal of 2007 still an unhealed wound, while McLaren's recent entanglement in the lie-gate saga represents another dark chapter.

Faced with all these 'gates' it was perhaps inevitable that Dennis would one day bolt, but as he disappears through F1's exit door, it is perhaps worth stating that his legacy should not be defined by the controversies of recent years.

Before the mud started to fly in McLaren's direction there was success - lots of it - and central to that success was the canny leadership of Dennis.

After cutting his teeth in F1 as a mechanic in the 1960s, Dennis moved into team ownership in Formula Two during the 1970s before returning to F1 at the dawn of a new decade.

In 1980 Dennis' own Project Four outfit merged with the fading McLaren team in a collaboration that would shape the face of F1 for the next decade.

With McLaren a spent force and without a win since 1977, Dennis set to work at the helm of his new empire.

Three titles were soon won by Niki Lauda and Alain Prost but it was Dennis' masterstroke in switching to Honda engines in 1988 which firmly entrenched the team in F1 folklore.

Fifteen wins out of 16 races that season marked a level of dominance seldom witnessed before or since, while a delicious sub-plot to that famous season was the fierce rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Prost, a simmering rivalry which cast Dennis as both mediator and mentor to his bickering charges.

Dennis worked wonders to keep the fractured team together in 1989 as Prost took the title back from Senna, but the Brazilian had the rub of the green after Prost moved on to Ferrari, delivering further drivers' crowns in 1990 and 1991.

The Senna-Prost era arguably marked the zenith of Dennis' tenure, but he would come again.

After the wilderness years of the mid-1990s, the team emerged stronger in 1998 after Dennis lured design guru Adrian Newey into the fold.

The move paid instant dividends with back-to-back drivers' titles for Mika Hakkinen, but Dennis would have to wait almost a decade for another title when Lewis Hamilton claimed the 2008 crown.

So intrinsically linked with the McLaren brand has Dennis become over the past 29 years that it is sometimes easy to forget it is not his name over the door at the team's Norman Foster-designed headquarters.

That honour will forever be the reserve of Bruce McLaren, who established the team in 1966 only to die in a sportscar accident in 1970, long before the team bearing his name would dominate the sport under Dennis.

While in charge of McLaren Dennis formed bonds with drivers which appeared to run far deeper than a traditional driver-boss relationship, particularly with the likes of Senna and Hakkinen, but equally Dennis could grate on those in his employ, with Juan Pablo Montoya and Fernando Alonso unable to see eye to eye with the Englishman.

Issues relating to Dennis' relationships with his drivers paled into the background when McLaren were in 2007 fined £50 million for being in possession of Ferrari data, while Hamilton's disqualification from that year's Belgian Grand Prix for an illegal overtake drove a further wedge between McLaren and the FIA.

Dennis stood down as team principal prior to the 2009 season but again saw his team pulled into controversy as Hamilton was disqualified in Australia for misleading race stewards over an incident behind the safety car.

After being present for the race in Melbourne, Dennis elected to watch the following race in Malaysia away from all the tumult and in the comfort of his home, an activity he found "surprisingly easy".

That is not altogether surprising given the troubles of recent times, but when Dennis' contribution to the sport over the past five decades is considered after the dust settles, perhaps then will his absence be more keenly felt on all sides.