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McLaren
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McLaren is a Formula One team based in Woking, Surrey, UK. Founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren, McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor but has also competed in the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race and Canadian-American Challenge Cup. The team is one of the most successful teams in Formula One, having won over 160 races, 12 Drivers' Championships and 8 Constructors' Championships. The team were the first to design a car using a carbon fibre monocoque, which is now ubiquitous in its use by all teams.
The current team was formed by the merger of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing with Ron Dennis's Project Four Racing in 1981.
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Encyclopedia
McLaren is a Formula One team based in Woking, Surrey, UK. Founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren, McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor but has also competed in the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race and Canadian-American Challenge Cup. The team is one of the most successful teams in Formula One, having won over 160 races, 12 Drivers' Championships and 8 Constructors' Championships. The team were the first to design a car using a carbon fibre monocoque, which is now ubiquitous in its use by all teams.
The current team was formed by the merger of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing with Ron Dennis's Project Four Racing in 1981. Shortly after the merger, Dennis organised a buyout of the original McLaren shareholders to take full control of the team. McLaren is part of McLaren Racing, a member of the McLaren Group. Engines are supplied by McLaren shareholder Mercedes-Benz through Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines. Dennis was team principal from the 1981 merger until March 2009, when he agreed to transfer his position to longtime McLaren employee Martin Whitmarsh. Dennis will continue to work within the McLaren Group.
Racing history
1960s
Bruce McLaren Motor Racing was founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren, initially as a builder of sports cars. The team built and raced a series of cars powered by American V8s in various races in Canada and the US. The team was transformed in 1967 when they introduced the Mk6, the first cars in McLaren orange, and completely dominated the 1967 Can-Am season.
The Kiwi made the team’s Grand Prix debut at the 1966 Monaco race. However, Bruce’s race was rather short-lived due to a terminal oil leak on the car. The 1966 programme was hampered by a poor choice of engines—Bruce had selected a short-stroke version of the 4.2 litre Ford Indy engine, which generated a lot of noise but very little power and was big and bulky. Ironically, Jack Brabham had adopted a Repco-developed engine based on a similar Oldsmobile block to the one Bruce was using in his early sports cars and his team took the 1966 and 1967 world championships.
Bruce abandoned the Ford in favour of a woefully underpowered but at least reliable Serenissima V8 (a descendant of the old ATS V8) to score the team's first point. In he initially turned to a slightly enlarged M4 Formula Two car powered by a 2.0 litre BRM V8 before building a similar but slightly larger car called the M5 for the BRM V12. This was quick but had reliability problems and Bruce soon decided that the team had to adopt the Cosworth DFV engine.
In and the team raced only one car in the Championship with Bruce behind the wheel. In addition to his Grand Prix duties, Bruce contested the Can-Am Championship that year and, alongside team mate Denny Hulme, the pair won five out of the season’s six races.
In with the Cosworth powered M7 the team consisted of two drivers including reigning Formula One World Champion Denny Hulme who also drove for McLaren in Can-Am that year. Bruce won the non-championship Race of Champions, at the Brands Hatch circuit, then the Belgian Grand Prix was the scene of the team's first Championship win. Hulme won the Italian Grand Prix and Canadian Grand Prix later in the year.
A further three podium finishes followed for Bruce in , but the team's fifth win had to wait until the last race of the 1969 championship when Hulme won the Mexican Grand Prix. In Can-Am the McLaren team won all eleven races. Bruce McLaren won six races, Hulme five, and Bruce won the driver's championship.
1970s
As a team, McLaren had a disastrous beginning to the decade. The team entered the Indianapolis 500 for the first time but Hulme was severely burned on the hands in an incident in practice. Peter Revson replaced Hulme but retired from the race. Bruce's business partner Teddy Mayer took over effective control of the team.
On 2 June 1970 Bruce McLaren was killed in a crash at Goodwood while testing the new M8D Can-Am car. While travelling at , a fastener for the rear bodywork failed and the entire rear piece detached from the car. The car spun into a concrete marshal post and McLaren was killed instantly. Twelve days after Bruce McLaren's death Dan Gurney won the opening Can-Am race of 1970 at Mosport for McLaren. The McLaren M8D won nine of the ten races in 1970 and Hulme won the championship. In 1971 the team saw off the challenge of 1969 World Champion Jackie Stewart in the Lola T260, winning eight races, with Peter Revson taking the title.
McLaren went winless in Formula 1 in and , years dominated by Jochen Rindt and Jackie Stewart respectively. Hulme took the team's first F1 win since Bruce's death in the 1972 South African Grand Prix with the M19C. Hulme also won three Can-Am races in 1972 but the McLaren M20 was defeated by the Porsche 917/10s of Mark Donohue and George Follmer. McLaren decided to abandon the Can-Am series at the end of 1972, focussing solely on Formula One and USAC. The original Can-Am series itself ceased at the end of 1974, with McLaren by far the most successful constructor with 43 wins.
In USAC competition Peter Revson had won pole position for the 1971 Indianapolis 500 in a McLaren M16. The M16 introduced to USAC competition the concept of mounting the car's engine entirely ahead of the rear axle, rather than partly over it, as was the standard at the time. The car also wore prominent front and rear wings, another practice not common in American racing. Revson finished second in 1971, and Mark Donohue won the '500' in 1972 driving a McLaren-Offenhauser run by Roger Penske.
The McLaren M23, designed by Gordon Coppuck, was the team's new car for the 1973 Formula One season. It was described by Coppuck as being essentially the front of an M16 and the back of an M19. It was a wedge-shaped car following the same concept as the Lotus 72 but with more conventional suspension and up to date aerodynamics. Hulme won with it in Sweden and Revson took the only Grand Prix wins of his career in Britain and Canada. At Indianapolis, Johnny Rutherford took pole position in the "works" M16C.
In Emerson Fittipaldi joined McLaren, now under the direction of Teddy Mayer, from Lotus to become their lead driver. The team achieved their first Formula One World Constructors' and World Drivers' Championship (with Fittipaldi) and their first Indianapolis 500 win (with Johnny Rutherford). The year also saw Yardley cosmetics replaced as Formula One sponsor by Marlboro cigarettes (although one Yardley car was run by an ostensibly separate team for the year alongside the two Marlboro entries), a deal that was to last until . was a less successful year for the team. Fittipaldi was second in the championship behind Niki Lauda. Jochen Mass took his sole GP win in Spain, and Rutherford was second at Indianapolis. At the end of 1975 Fittipaldi left McLaren to join his brother's Fittipaldi/Copersucar team.
The Drivers' Championship would come McLaren's way again in with Fittipaldi's replacement, James Hunt beating Niki Lauda by a single point. Meanwhile Johnny Rutherford scored McLaren's second Indianapolis 500 victory, with the team becoming the first team to twice accomplish both feats in the same year. Hunt won three times in F1 in 1977, but these would prove to be McLaren's last GP wins of the decade. The M23's replacement, the M26 was a troublesome car, and subsequent models were even less successful. McLaren ended their American involvement at the end of the 1979 CART season after increasingly poor returns from the series.
1980s and early 1990s dominance
The current McLaren F1 team resulted from a merger of the McLaren team and Ron Dennis' personal Formula 2 team, called Project Four Racing, in 1980. Project Four was also backed by Marlboro, and had designer John Barnard and an innovative carbon-fibre F1 chassis design but no money and inadequate facilities for F1; McLaren had the facilities but were at the end of a long losing streak. John Hogan, a Philip Morris executive, forced McLaren chairman Teddy Mayer to accept the merger with Dennis' team. This was in effect a reverse takeover with the Formula One constructor becoming McLaren International.
In 1981 Dennis and his business partners bought out the other McLaren shareholders, Mayer and Tyler Alexander. In Dennis persuaded then Williams backer, Mansour Ojjeh to become a partner in McLaren International. Ojjeh invested in Porsche built turbocharged engines which carried the name of his company, Techniques d'Avant Garde (TAG).
The nomenclature for McLaren's F1 cars since the merger has caused some confusion among fans of the sport, as all McLaren cars since 1981 have carried designations of the form "MP4/x", or since 2001 "MP4-x", where x is the generation of the chassis (e.g. MP4/1, MP4-22). In fact, "MP4" stood initially for "Marlboro Project 4", so that the full title of the cars (McLaren MP4/x) reflected not only the historical name of the team, but also the names of the team's major sponsor and its new component part. The team's cars still use the same nomenclature, but since the change of title sponsor for the 1997 season, MP4 is now, rather conveniently, said to stand for McLaren-Project 4. At no time has the "MP4" prefix reflected the particular generation of the chassis.
The most successful period in McLaren's history came under the early leadership of Ron Dennis. John Barnard designed the revolutionary McLaren MP4/2 chassis, the first F1 chassis made entirely of carbon-fibre composites, which proved very strong when mated to the TAG/Porsche turbo engine, designed and built to Barnard's specifications. A succession of strong drivers helped, with Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Keke Rosberg, and Stefan Johansson driving for the team in this period. McLaren-Porsche won the Constructors' title in (with Lauda taking the Drivers' crown), and (with Prost winning his first world title). McLaren did not win the Constructors' Championship in , although Prost took the drivers' title again.
After losing the previous two Constructors titles to Williams in 1986 and , McLaren was able to convince Honda to switch its backing from Williams starting in . The McLaren-Honda MP4/4 won an amazing 15 of 16 races that year and leading all but 27 laps, achieving a staggering and unbeaten record to this date. (Senna had been leading comfortably at Monza, but collided with back-marker Jean-Louis Schlesser's Williams.) Ayrton Senna took the driver's title that season, his first with the Woking marque.
The next year, using a new 3.5 L naturally-aspirated engine designed by Honda, McLaren again won both titles with the McLaren MP4/5, with Alain Prost clinching it at the Japanese Grand Prix after a highly controversial collision with his teammate Senna. This was the culmination of a vitriolic feud between the two men. Believing that Honda and Ron Dennis viewed Senna as the future of the team, Prost announced on July 1989 that he would not resign with the team. By Suzuka, the Brazilian had two cars and 20 people around him, while the Frenchman had one car with maybe four or five mechanics. In support of Senna, who had finished the race first but was subsequently disqualified, McLaren appealed unsuccessfully.
Alain Prost left to join the Ferrari team in . Nevertheless, McLaren continued to top Formula One for the next two seasons. Despite stiff challenges from Prost's Ferrari and Nigel Mansell's Williams, Senna won the World Drivers' Championship in 1990 and , respectively, using the MP4/6 V12. McLaren also won the constructors title in both of those years. New teammate Gerhard Berger helped to ensure this double success and the McLaren drivers often played pranks on each other to lighten the atmosphere.
Mid-1990s decline
Beginning in , McLaren's dominance began to be eroded by the ascendant Renault-powered Williams, a drop in form that was compounded by the departure of Honda from Formula One at the end of that season.
McLaren switched to customer Ford engines for the season. While these proved competitive in the hands of Senna, American Michael Andretti's season was a disaster, scoring only a handful of points. He was replaced before the end of the year by Finnish youngster Mika Häkkinen. Senna had played a game of brinkmanship with Dennis over his contract at the start of the season, but as it became obvious that the MP4/8 was competitive he agreed to complete the season. During 1993 McLaren experimented with a Lamborghini V12 which Senna reckoned was worth racing; Dennis chose a works deal with Peugeot instead, Lamborghini's owners Chrysler pulled the plug on the F1 programme and Senna departed for Williams at the end of the season after winning the final two races of the year. Concluding the season on a high, McLaren announced they were to begin a challenge for the land speed record. However, as results began to decline in the following seasons the plan was quietly shelved.
For Martin Brundle joined Häkkinen in new Peugeot-powered cars. The results and the engine were unimpressive, and Peugeot was dropped after a single year in favour of the promising new Mercedes-Benz (Ilmor) engine. But was even worse, with the radical MP4/10 proving to be too heavy and slow. Former world-champion Nigel Mansell came to the team, but had a torrid time — he was unable to fit into the car at first—and retired after just two races with Mark Blundell taking his place.
was the end of an era for McLaren, as they parted company with long-term sponsors Marlboro, and the famous red and white McLaren livery disappeared from Formula One to be replaced with Reemtsma's West branding and a silver Mercedes livery in .
Late 1990s return to form
While Williams dominated F1 in 1996 and 1997, McLaren made slow, careful strides with its Mercedes-Ilmor engine and drivers Häkkinen and David Coulthard. Coulthard made a promising start to the 1997 season by winning the Australian Grand Prix. The car was not good enough to consistently win grands prix, although Coulthard was successful late at the Italian Grand Prix.
At the 1997 Austrian Grand Prix, Darren Heath, an F1 Racing photographer, noticed in some of his shots that one of the rear brakes of the McLarens were glowing red in an acceleration zone of the track. The magazine discovered through investigation that McLaren had installed a second brake pedal, selectable by the driver, to act on one of the rear wheels depending on the direction of the corner. This allowed the driver to reduce wheelspin when exiting slow corners and more usefully eliminate understeer by turning the car into the corner while entering it, giving him the ability to brake later into the apex of the turn. Though the car passed scrutineering this system was not entirely legal, but was an innovation, and hence gave McLaren an advantage. As the system allowed one side of the car to be retarded compared to the other the system was considered a type of four-wheel steering which was banned in F1. One notable backer of this complaint was Jackie Stewart; on the grid at Brazil in 1998 he aired this view in an interview with ITV. While F1 Racing suspected what McLaren were doing, they required proof to publish the story. At the Luxembourg Grand Prix the two McLarens retired from the race. This allowed Heath to take a picture of the footwell of Häkkinen's car and the second brake pedal. The story was run in the November issue of F1 Racing and led to the system being dubbed the "fiddle brake". Ferrari's protestations to the FIA lead to the system being banned at the 1998 Brazilian Grand Prix.
During 1997 McLaren poached Williams' talented designer, Adrian Newey. Then Mika Häkkinen offered a taste of things to come with his victory in the final race of the 1997 season, the European Grand Prix.
The fact that McLaren now had Adrian Newey on board, coupled with the withdrawal of Renault at the end of 1997 allowed McLaren to mount a strong challenge in , with one source even stating that McLaren had built such a strong team that the only way to increase their championship hopes was to hire double world champion Michael Schumacher. In 1998 the McLaren was once again able to regularly challenge for Grand Prix victories, winning nine grands prix that year. Häkkinen won the Drivers' Championship in 1998, scoring 100 points, and McLaren took the Constructors' Championship in 1998. Häkkinen took the title again in , but the season was more difficult for the team who lost the Constructors' Championship to Ferrari despite an injured Schumacher.
2000s
2000 was another closely-fought season, but ultimately Ferrari's Michael Schumacher prevailed.
In , Mika Häkkinen dropped off the pace in comparison with Coulthard, although neither driver could compete with the now dominant combination of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari. In Häkkinen took a sabbatical (which turned into retirement), opening the way for promising compatriot Kimi Räikkönen to take his place. McLaren only captured four wins over the following three seasons. 2002 saw just a single win at Monaco for Coulthard while rivals Ferrari won all but two races.
started very promisingly, with wins at the two first grands prix of the year, one each for Coulthard and Räikkönen. However, rival teams soon caught up as McLaren was severely hampered in by the development of the MP4-18, a radical new design which due to reliability problems never raced. This forced the team to use the year-old MP4-17D, a very severe handicap in modern Formula One racing. However, despite this, Räikkönen finished in the points consistently and challenged Michael Schumacher for the championship all the way up to the very last race, eventually losing the title by only two points.
The team began the 2004 Formula One season with the MP4-19, which technical director Adrian Newey described as a "debugged version of the MP4-18." This proved to be anything but the case, and a new car was required by mid-season. The MP4-19B was basically an all new car with a radically redesigned aerodynamic package. The fact that Coulthard qualified third for its first race, the French Grand Prix, gave the team hope of a better end to the season. This was realised when Räikkönen won the 2004 Belgian Grand Prix ahead of the seemingly unstoppable Ferrari of Michael Schumacher, who won 13 of the 18 races that year, currently the record for most wins in a single season.
Colombian driver and former CART champion Juan Pablo Montoya was named as Coulthard's replacement for the season, partnering Räikkönen. Montoya had to be replaced for two races by test drivers Pedro de la Rosa and Alexander Wurz after sustaining a shoulder injury while playing tennis. The general unreliability of the car cost McLaren a number of race victories when Räikkönen had been leading or in contention to win. Renault (and Fernando Alonso in particular) were able to capitalise on the McLarens' breakdowns and win both titles. Reflecting on an competitive but ultimately unsuccessful season for the team, Ron Dennis remarked that "We feel our championship efforts were thwarted by our conservative approach to the first four races."
On 19 December 2005, the team announced the signing of the 2005 World Drivers' Champion Fernando Alonso to drive for the team from the 2007 Formula One season.
2006
The 2006 season saw McLaren introduce a new, chrome livery for their MP4-21. The team was positive about its chances in the upcoming championship after the performances in the latter half of 2005. However, in winter testing it became clear that the Mercedes engine was lacking in power. Mercedes responded by introducing a new spec engine which offered far improved performance.
Juan Pablo Montoya parted company acrimoniously with the team after the United States Grand Prix, in which he ended both his and team mate Räikkönen's hopes for the race by crashing into him at the start. He announced he was departing to race NASCAR for Chip Ganassi Racing, and was replaced by test driver Pedro de la Rosa for the remainder of the season.
Following the 2006 Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari confirmed that they had signed Räikkönen as a replacement for the retiring Michael Schumacher. The season continued with the McLarens being near the top of the field, but the superior reliability and speed of the Ferraris and Renaults prevented the team from gaining any race victories from 2006, something not seen for a decade at McLaren.
In 2007, Steve Matchett argued that the poor reliability of McLaren in 2006 and recent previous years was due to a lack of team continuity and stability. His cited examples of instability are logistical challenges related to the move to the McLaren Technology Centre, Adrian Newey's aborted move to Jaguar and later move to Red Bull and the subsequent move of Newey's deputy to Red Bull. He also cites major upheavals at Ilmor which may have contributed to the "lamentable string of engine failures"; the piecemeal buyout by Mercedes-Benz, the resultant departure of co-founder Mario Illien, the appointment of Mercedes-Benz engineer Markus Deusmann to head the renamed Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines and the departure of Deusmann a year later to BMW.
2007
The season saw Fernando Alonso join the team alongside F1 rookie Lewis Hamilton. Vodafone became the new title sponsor. Alonso and Hamilton scored four race wins each over the course of the season. The team were also involved in a number of controversies during the season. Alonso was judged to have deliberately impeded his team-mate during qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix, and the FIA ruled that the team should not be allowed to score constructors points at the event. More seriously, the team were found guilty of obtaining a rival teams technical information and after two hearings by the governing body, the team were disqualified from the constructors championship.
The drivers were allowed to continue without penalty, and Hamilton led the Drivers' Championship heading into the final race, with Alonso also still in contention but neither driver was able to clinch it, both finishing a single point behind Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen. On November 2, Alonso and McLaren agreed to terminate the contract of the Spaniard by mutual consent with neither party paying a financial penalty.
2008
On 14 December 2007, it was confirmed that Heikki Kovalainen would drive the second car for McLaren Mercedes for the 2008 Formula One season alongside Lewis Hamilton.
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes started the year with both drivers scoring in the points at the 2008 Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton started from pole and ended up winning the Grand Prix, while Kovalainen started 3rd and dropped two spots by the finish. McLaren's 14 points saw them lead the Formula One Constructors' World Championship standings after the first race, as well as the driver's championship with Hamilton. After a mixed continuation to the season post-Melbourne, Hamilton then recorded victories at Monaco, Britain (his first on home soil) and Germany.
At the inaugural 2008 European Grand Prix, McLaren ran a relatively low key race, with Hamilton taking 2nd place and Kovalainen taking 4th. Hamilton stated after the race that he was happy to play the long game, picking up as many points as possible in order to boost his championship lead . Following the European Grand Prix, Hamilton led the championship by 6 points from Felipe Massa, and McLaren held 113 points, which put them in second place behind Ferrari (121 points).
At the following race, the Belgian Grand Prix, Hamilton crossed the finish line in first position but was deemed to have gained an illegal advantage cutting a chicane during an overtake, and a 25 second penalty was given to him at the end of the race, demoted him to third in the classification.
The next race at Monza saw Kovalainen qualify second, and Hamilton 15th after a poor tyre choice during the second qualifying session, choosing to stay out on intermediate tyres rather than the full extreme-wets. The race saw Kovalainen finish second, while Hamilton managed to recover to 7th place.
At the inaugural Singapore night race, Hamilton qualified second with Kovalainen in fifth. During the race, both of Hamilton's main championship rivals Massa and Räikkönen failed to finish in the points. Hamilton managed to finish third, with Kovalainen tenth.
After qualifying in pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix, Hamilton could only finish 12th. Kovalainen qualified third, but retired in the race with engine problems. After a miserable weekend the previous year, Hamilton won from pole in the Chinese Grand Prix. Kovalainen qualified fifth, but again retired with a hydraulics/engine failure.
Going into the final round of the season in Brazil, Hamilton had a seven point lead over Massa. As long as he finished in the top five, he would win the championship regardless of where Massa finished. With Massa taking pole, Hamilton could only qualify 4th and Kovalainen 5th. By the final lap of the race, Hamilton had been overtaken by Sebastian Vettel and with Massa having already won the race, his sixth position would mean that Hamilton would finish runner-up. However Toyota's Timo Glock, who had stayed out on dry tyres despite the falling rain, was driving slowly enough for Hamilton to overtake him at the final few corners. Crossing the line in the required fifth, Hamilton became the youngest ever, first black man and first McLaren driver in 9 years to win the Formula One Driver's Championship.
2009
At McLaren's team launch for the 2009 Formula One season Ron Dennis announced that he will retire from his position as team principal for McLaren. Martin Whitmarsh succeeded Dennis in this position.
McLaren's new car, the MP4-24 was at the McLaren Technical Centre, Woking, England, on Friday 16th January 2009. McLaren test driver, Pedro de la Rosa was surprised at the initial pace of the MP4-24, given the lack of aerodynamic grip available under the new regulations.
Sponsorship
The team has had title sponsorship from four brands in its history: Yardley (1971-1973), Marlboro (1974-1996), West (1997-2005) and Vodafone (2007-present).
It was originally called Bruce McLaren Motor Racing, although it had early title sponsorship from Yardley cosmetics. McLaren had one of the longest standing title sponsorship arrangements in sport with Philip Morris through their Marlboro brand. The relationship dated back to 1974 and was continuous from 1981 to 1996, after which (from the 1997 season on) Marlboro chose to exclusively sponsor Ferrari.
Reemtsma (through its West brand) was the title sponsor of McLaren from 1997 until 29 July 2005, after which McLaren were obliged to seek a new principal sponsor due to a European Union directive banning tobacco advertising. The team was therefore known as Team McLaren Mercedes until the end of 2006.
The current title sponsor is Vodafone, with the official team name for the 2007 season being Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, as announced in December 2005.
Aside from title sponsors, other current sponsors and suppliers include Diageo plc (Johnnie Walker whisky brand), aigo, FedEx, Hugo Boss, H&R, Hilton Hotels, Mobil 1 (fuel and lubricants), Santander,and Lenovo.
Formula One results
(italics indicates non-works entries; bold indicates championships won)
† Excluded due to breach of Article 151(c) of the International Sporting Code
‡ Not awarded points for 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix
See also
External links
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