The History of McLaren in F1 Formerly called Bruce McLaren Motor Racing, McLaren was launched by New Zealand F1 legend Bruce McLaren in the year 1963. matthew roddan The team's Grand Prix Debut was in 1966 in Monaco Grand Prix and they're also the very first team that constructed a car using carbon fibre monacoque, which is now common for motorsport. They've emerged as one among the most successful teams F1 has with their eight back-to-back constructor's titles, 12 driver's titles and more than 160 Grand Prix wins. McLaren's first win was from McLaren in a 1968 non-championship race, though a Grand Prix win came for him a little later in Belgian Grand Prix. Following this, Denny Hulme, McLaren's teammate won Canadian and Italian Grand Prix the same season. They also came second, after Lotus in Constructor's Championship. The year 1970 did not start off well for McLaren, with McLaren killed while testing CanAm car. However, only 12 days later, Dan Gurney drove the car towards a win that season. McLaren had become a successful team with 43 wins though CanAm series when the series ended two years later. However, it was two years before McLaren's team won a title after McLaren's death and it was in South African Grand Prix with Hulme at the wheel. Even with famous names competing, McLaren managed to snatch a few wins, though it was in 1976 when they got their next driver's championship. With drivers like Niki Lauda, 1984 was a blast for the team where they won both the driver's and constructor's championships. Until 1990, they had a few hits and misses though, after 1990, they had to wait until 1998 before the team won another title. Mika Hakkinen won the driver's championship amidst changed rules in 1998 and retained the title in 1999. With the dawn of new century, competition was rife from Ferrari. They came up with the fastest car in 2005 and even with ten wins; they lost due to less reliability. Also, in 2007, they were accused of using Ferrari's confidential data and the controversy affected the team. They lost their constructor's points and were also fined $100 million. Driver's title was also lost by one point. Though Hamilton was brought back to restore the team's pride and luster, Heikki Kovalainen's less than stellar performance meant they came second. In 2009, Ron Dennis made way for Martin Whitmarsh. Though the season wasn't looking up, a sea of changes to MP4-24, Hamilton grabbed the team's first win for that season at Hungarian Grand Prix. He pushed ahead and grabbed another win in Singapore. However, things did not better until 2013 and Martin Whitmarsh was sacked. In 2013, McLaren announced they would use Honda engines from 2015 instead of Mercedes-Benz. They also competed as McLaren Honda for the first time in 2015. All said and done, McLaren is one of most popular and successful F1 teams. |