McLaren

McLaren Racing Limited is a British Formula One team based in Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom. McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor but has also competed and won in the Indianapolis 500 and Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am). The team is the second oldest active team (after Ferrari) and one of the most successful teams in Formula One, having won 175 races, 12 drivers' championships and 8 constructors' championships.

McLaren

Founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren, the team won its first Grand Prix at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix but their greatest initial success was in Can-Am, where they dominated from 1967 to 1971. Further American triumph followed, with Indianapolis 500 wins in McLaren cars for Mark Donohue in 1972 and Johnny Rutherford in 1974 and 1976. After Bruce McLaren died in a testing accident in 1970, Teddy Mayer took over and led the team to their first Formula One constructors' championship in 1974, with Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt winning the drivers' championship in 1974 and 1976 respectively. 1974 also marked the start of a long standing sponsorship by Phillip Morris' Marlboro cigarette brand.

In 1981 McLaren merged with Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing; Dennis took over as team principal and shortly after organised a buyout of the original McLaren shareholders to take full control of the team. This began the team's most successful era: with Porsche and Honda engines, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna took between them seven drivers' championships and McLaren six constructors' championships. The combination of Prost and Senna was particularly dominant—together they won all but one race in 1988—but later their rivalry soured and Prost left for Ferrari. Fellow English team Williams offered the most consistent challenge during this period, the two winning every constructors' title between 1984 and 1994. However, by the mid-1990s Honda had withdrawn from Formula One, Senna had moved to Williams and the team went three seasons without a win. With Mercedes-Benz engines, West sponsorship and former Williams designer Adrian Newey, further championships came in 1998 and 1999 with driver Mika Häkkinen and during the 2000s the team were consistent front-runners, driver Lewis Hamilton taking their latest title in 2008. In 2009 Dennis retired as team principal of McLaren handing the former role to longtime McLaren employee Martin Whitmarsh.

McLaren

McLaren's first Can-Am entrant was the M1B, which Bruce and Chris Amon raced in the series' inaugural, 1966 season. With it, they led two races but scored no wins. The following year Robin Herd purpose-designed the Chevrolet V8 powered M6A, delays with the Formula One programme allowing the team to spend extra resources on developing the Can-Am car which was the first to be painted in McLaren orange. With Denny Hulme now partnering Bruce, they won five out of six races and Bruce won the championship, setting the pattern for the next four years. In 1968 they used a new car, the M8, to win four races—non-works McLarens took the other two—but this time Hulme was victorious overall. 1969 saw McLaren domination become total as they won all eleven races with the M8B; Hulme won five, Bruce won six and the driver's championship. McLaren's success in Can-Am brought with it financial rewards, both prize money and money from selling cars to other teams, that helped to support the team and fund the nascent and relatively poor paying Formula One programme.

McLaren's Formula One team was originally called Bruce McLaren Motor Racing and for their first season ran white-and-green coloured cars as a result of a deal with the makers of the film Grand Prix. The most famous livery in the early years was the all-orange one of 1968–1971, also used in Can-Am and at the Indianapolis 500 and revived occasionally for pre-season testing in later years. The RAC and FIA governing bodies relaxed their rules about on-car advertising in 1968 allowing Lotus to pioneer commercial sponsorship in Formula One with their Gold Leaf liveried cars. Thus in 1972, the Yardley cosmetics company became McLaren's first title sponsor and the colour scheme changed to a predominantly white one. In 1974, Philip Morris joined as title sponsor through their Marlboro cigarette brand, whilst one car continued to run—ostensibly by a separate team—with Yardley livery for the year. Marlboro's red-and-white branding lasted until 1996, during which time the team went by various names incorporating the word "Marlboro", making it the then longest running Formula One sponsorship (now surpassed by Hugo Boss's 1981–present deal with McLaren). It was then replaced by Reemtsma's West cigarette branding and a silver-and-black livery in 1997, the official name becoming West McLaren Mercedes.

McLaren photos