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McLaren may be regarded as a British team but they were in fact founded by a New Zealander.
Following in Brabham’s footsteps
Bruce McLaren, for many years the youngest driver to win a grand prix, founded McLaren Motor Racing Ltd in 1963, following the lead of fellow Antipodean Jack Brabham in establishing his own team.
The company built its first F1 chassis in 1966 and McLaren scored the team’s first point in the British Grand Prix that year.
But it wasn’t until the outfit teamed its M7 chassis with a Ford DFV engine that the team really took off, Denny Hulme narrowly missing out on the 1968 championship to Graham Hill’s Lotus.
The team also enjoyed big success in the CanAm series, until McLaren was killed testing at Goodwood in 1970.
First championship
Teddy Mayer took over the team following McLaren’s death but the team enjoyed only sporadic success until building the new M23 chassis in 1973.
Hulme and Peter Revson won three races that year while Emerson Fittipaldi took the team’s first title the following year, beating Ferrari’s Clay Reggazoni.
Fittipaldi departed at the end of 1975 to set up his own team and James Hunt was drafted in to replace him. The Brit won the championship, although his triumph owed much to the fact that Niki Lauda was severely injured at the Nurburgring.
The rest of the Seventies yielded little for McLaren as they were overtaken by those teams that most successfully exploited ground-effect, such as Lotus.
Ron Dennis takes control
Teddy Mayer sold out to Ron Dennis, then the boss of the Project Four Formula 2 team, in 1980. It was to be the beginning of the McLaren team as we know it today.
Dennis recruited John Barnard as technical director and the Englishman designed the landmark MP4, the first F1 car ever to boast a carbon fibre monocoque.
Although the team finished second in the constructors’ championship in 1981, they often found their normally-aspirated engines no match for the turbos. It was not until Dennis clinched a deal for TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines in 1984 that things really took off.
Prost returns
Dennis recruited Alain Prost, who had made his F1 debut in 1980 with McLaren to partner the wily old Niki Lauda in 1984 and the team dominated.
Lauda eventually pipped Prost to the championship by half a point, despite winning only five races to the Frenchman’s seven.
Prost made amends by clinching back-to-back titles in 1985 and 1986 before the team was left behind by the Honda-powered Williams in 1987.
Dennis’ response was to pinch Honda engines and recruit Ayrton Senna from Lotus. The result was perhaps the most stunning season in F1 history.
Nearly perfect
Prost and Senna together won 15 out of 16 races in 1988 – the only one to slip through the net being the Italian GP, when Senna was punted off while lapping backmarker Jean-Louis Schlesser.
Eventually the championship was decided in Senna’s favour after the Brazilian recovered from 14th place to win the Japanese Grand Prix.
Turbo engines were banned at in 1989 but it did little to stop the McLaren bandwagon. The normally-aspirated Honda engine was good enough to win 10 out of 16 races as Prost avenged his defeat to Senna the previous season.
Having fallen out with Senna, Prost departed for Ferrari in 1990 – although if anything the duo’s rivalry became even greater. The Brazilian prevailed again and added a third title in 1991 before Williams took over as F1’s top team.
Wilderness years
The period between 1992 and 1997 were largely barren for McLaren. Following Honda’s pull-out at the end of 1992, the team switched to Ford customer engines before forming a disastrous alliance with Peugeot.
Senna had departed at the end of 1993, promoting young Mika Hakkinen to team
leader. The Finn was later to become an integral part of the McLaren renaissance.
McLaren eventually settled on a long-term partnership with Mercedes in 1995
but had to wait until 1997 to take their first wins.
Back on top
The arrival of Adrian Newey in 1998 provided the spur to put McLaren back on top and Mika Hakkinen enjoyed back-to-back titles in ’98 and ’99. The Finn narrowly missed out on becoming the first driver since Fangio to take three consecutive titles in 2000.
McLaren have since been forced to play second fiddle to Ferrari, although the emergence of Kimi Raikkonen as Hakkinen’s successor in 2003 hinted that good times may soon be around the corner again.
Drivers: Rubens Barrichello | Gerhard Berger | David Coultard | Giancarlo Fisichella | Heinz-Harald Frentzen | Mika Hakkinen | Eddie Irvine | Olivier Panis | Michael Schumacher | Ralf Schumacher | Jacques Villeneuve
Teams: Ferrari | Jordan | McLaren | Renault | Williams
