History

McLaren is one of the most successful teams in Formula One and is rich in heritage. Since making its Formula One debut in 1966, they have won 138 GPs, second only to Ferrari who have a total of 182 victories since 1950. However, unlike Ferrari, McLaren only entered the sport in 1966 after New Zealander Bruce McLaren established Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Limited.

Two years after the team made its debut at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, their first victory was achieved when the boss himself, Bruce McLaren, drove his Ford powered machine to glory.

Tragically, it was just two years later in a Cam Am testing session at the Goodwood Circuit in the UK that the now legendary New Zealander lost his life. However, by then, Bruce had already established a rich heritage in the world of motor racing, with success as a driver, and team owner as well as the admiration, respect and love of his colleagues.
 
After McLaren's death, the running of the team was handed over to Teddy Mayer who was in charge for a decade before handing the reigns to the man who is still in charge, Ron Dennis and with attention to detail and untold dedication, Dennis has continued the successful tradition of the team.
 
Four years after McLaren’s death, 1974, the team celebrated their first ever Formula One Drivers' and Constructors' Championship win. Emerson Fittipaldi drove the McLaren-Ford M23 to victory that year in what was a new era for the team and what a thrilling championship it was. Taking the fight right to the wire, the final round of the championship saw McLaren leading Ferrari 70 pts to 64, while Fittipaldi and Regazzoni were tied on 52 points. Scheckter still had a mathematical chance with 45 points. He qualified best, on row three, with Fittipaldi behind him and Regazzoni a row further back. Hulme's engine expired on lap five and he flew out of the circuit and Formula One before the race had finished. With Regazzoni's Ferrari handling appallingly, Fittipaldi knew he just had to shadow Scheckter to the flag, but the Tyrrell succumbed to a fuel pick up problem, and Fittipaldi finished fourth, securing the Drivers' title and the Constructors' too, a great day for McLaren.

Two years later English driver James Hunt, repeated the accomplishment, once again with Ford power in the M23, the team’s early partnership with Ford mirroring the success found with Mercedes-Benz.
 
After Fittipaldi left the team to compete in his Wilson's team, Hunt was elevated to team leader with Jochen Mass remaining as his teammate. It wasn’t an easy year, in fact it was full of protests and controversy. Ferrari and Lauda dominated at the start, winning the first three races of the season. However, Hunt won the fourth, was disqualified, and then reinstated with Lauda winning the next two before Hunt came back to win in France and then in Britain. However, he was to be disqualified from that event, after an extraordinary race in which he was allowed to restart in the spare car.

Hunt won in Germany too, but this was the race that saw his chief rival, Lauda, injured in a fiery crash that is still talked about today. Hunt went on to finish fourth in Austria and first in Holland, but Lauda courageously fought back from the brink of death to line up at Monza, finishing a brilliant fourth. Victories for Hunt in Canada and Watkins Glen saw the McLaren driver trail Lauda by three points as they came into the final race.

It was raining hard as the cars lined up for the Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji, drivers having discussed whether they should race or not. Lauda pitted after just one lap, Hunt led. The Austrian had trouble seeing in the rain, due to his fire ravaged eyebrows. He reluctantly but responsibly pulled out. Hunt didn’t have retirement as an option, he needed to finish third or higher. But his left rear tyre was punctured, and steadily he dropped back, eventually having to pit. Furious, he rejoined fifth, with just three laps to go. On new tyres, he moved to third and took the chequered flag, unaware that he was in the position needed to take the crown with a one point advantage.

The next title didn’t come for another decade when in 1984 Niki Lauda, who had made the switch from Ferrari, won the first of three successive drivers’ crowns. Driving the TAG turbo V6 MP4-2 Lauda was partnered by Alain Prost who had returned to McLaren after being sent on his way by Renault, and between the two of them they won a total of 12 races that year, clinching the Constructors' championship by a massive 86 points, the two men separated by just half a point, with Lauda pipping Prost for the crown.

Due to their remarkable success that year, the following season they were the benchmark and as such John Barnard introduced new bodywork, new rear suspension, new front uprights and new wings to help Prost and Lauda continue their winning streak. This time it was Prost wearing the crown at the end of the season, the Frenchman winning three of the first four races – however, one of which, the chaotic San Marino GP, resulted in disqualification. Lauda wasn’t so lucky with a single fourth place, two mechanical retirements and a spin on oil to his credit for the same period. Prost won at Silverstone, was second in Germany, won again in Austria, and then harried his teammate all the way to the line in Zandvoort as Lauda regained form. However, a wrist injury suffered two races later in Belgium merely served to confirm his decision to retire from the sport.
Replaced by John Watson for the next race, he retired after a year that reaped only 14 points and which Ron Dennis described as "unlucky". Prost clinched the title by round 14 and McLaren were Constructors' champions again, although this time only eight points ahead of Ferrari.

The third successive crown failed to bring the constructors trophy with it. Prost claimed the title at the end of the season, his second consecutive crown, at the Australian Grand Prix, the end of what many call a year that Williams Honda lost rather than McLaren won. It was only late in the season that Prost reasserted his talent with a win in Austria, a second in Portugal and Mexico and the crucial win in Australia. The race in Adelaide saw Mansell suffer with a tyre delamination, while Prost was convinced all was lost, the Frenchman on the verge of running out of fuel.

McLaren were back with a vengeance in 1988, with the pairing of Prost and Ayrton Senna, the duo notching up 14 wins between them in the 1988 / 89 season. The Senna / Prost partnership also holds the accolade for the most grands prix wins in a season as it was in 1988 that the pair won 15 out of the 16 races on the calendar. This year was the first of four consecutive Drivers' and Constructors' Championships (1988-1991) a feat only just surpassed by Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, who claimed their fifth of each in the 2004 season.

In theory, this was a transitional year for Formula One, as the turbo boost was lowered from four bar to 2.8 to give the advantage to normally aspirated engines in preparation for a turbo ban and fuel capacity lowered from 195 to 150 litres. In practice, it allowed McLaren, Honda, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna to rewrite the record books as they totally dominated the year.
 
With the team winning 15 of the 16 races, Senna with eight after being disqualified from his home event in Brazil, and Prost with seven, it was Ayrton holding the crown at the end of the year, three points ahead of his French teammate. But more incredible was the fact that both men had double the points of third placed Gerhard Berger while the team scored three times as many points as the second team in the Constructors' championship, 199 points to Ferrari's 65. It was a magnificent, mind numbing season by team and drivers; scarcely exciting, but mightily impressive in its perfection.

In 1989 a McLaren led every race apart from the Portuguese GP and the two drivers won ten of the 16 races, Prost with four to Senna's six. Despite this statistic, it was Prost claiming the crown for the team as Senna suffered through nine non scoring races to Prost’s three. Apart from gaining his third drivers crown, Prost also gained a strong sense of paranoia in regard to his teammate, a battle ensuing at Imola when Prost felt that Ayrton had breached a no passing agreement.

The uneasiness between the two continued and Prost accused Honda of favouring Senna and announced he would be leaving the team. Everyone remembers the incident at the Suzuka chicane that year where the duo collided with each other, however despite the fact that neither of them scored points in the last two races, the championships still went to McLaren.
 
A new decade and a new teammate, but it was still the same in terms of success with Ayrton Senna taking glory for the team once again and handing them their third successive constructor’s crown. While new teammate Gerhard Berger struggled to come to grips with the MP4/5B, Senna was leading from the front, leading every race of the season apart from Hungary where he harried Thierry Boutsen to the flag, and Suzuka, where he punted the now Ferrari driving Alain Prost off at the first corner to claim the championship.

1991 started brilliantly for Senna with a quartet of victories, including an emotional if troubled win at home at Interlagos. Despite two retirements, the Brazilian fought back superbly with a flag to flag win in Budapest and then leading home a great one two in Spa, in spite of gearbox problems similar to those suffered in Brazil. The subsequent two second places should have been enough to clinch the championship, but for previous problems, but a generous second to teammate Berger in Suzuka was sufficient to clinch the title with the seventh win of the year in Australia, the icing on the cake of his third crown, McLaren's fourth in succession.
That was the last successful season for several years and in August of 1997, Adrian Newey made the move to Woking with the plan already in mind of a car that would conform to the strict new regulations whilst maintaining the emphasis on safety that came into effect in the 1998 championship season, making the new challenger both safe and competitive. Some 12,000 man hours went into trying to regain downforce lost by the new regulations and Mercedes-Benz worked hard on the engine. This combined with the Bridgestone tyres, that hit the track running, made for a brilliant season all round.

McLaren began the season in dominant style with Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard a lap ahead of the field in the Australian Grand Prix. The result was the same in Brazil, while Hakkinen was second to Coulthard in Argentina. The Finn went on to win in Spain, Monaco, Austria, Germany, then in Luxembourg and Japan and wrapped up his first ever drivers crown and the teams third for the year and the last to date.

The following season was not a complete repeat, but without a doubt, they were the team to beat. At the season ending Japanese GP at Suzuka Hakkinen clinched the title, however this time the constructors crown eluded them .
Overall McLaren have secured 11 Drivers' World Championship titles and eight Constructor's World Championships. They have contested a total of 576 races and secured 115 pole positions.

2006 saw a lot of ups and downs for McLaren with their first winless season since 1997 and the defection of driver Juan Pablo Montoya to the American based NASCAR series mid season. Test driver Pedro de la Rosa stepped up to the plate to take over from the Colombian and secured his first ever podium finish in the process. At the end of the season, the Woking based squad finished third overall, nowhere near where they wanted to be, but it gave the incentive to secure a stronger result in 2007.

For the new season, they will boast an all new driver line up after Kimi Raikkonen made the move to Ferrari. Double world champion Fernando Alonso joined the fray and will contest the season alongside rookie racer Lewis Hamilton. Although new to Formula One, Lewis is no stranger to success, starting the year as the defending GP2 series champion and eager to return to a place he knows so well, the top step of the rostrum.