this: the Formula One racing team

McLaren, founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren (1937–1970), is a Formula One team based in Woking, Surrey, UK. 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 current team was formed by the merger of Bruce McLaren Motor Racing with Project Four Racing in 1981. The team is managed by Ron Dennis and 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.

McLaren is one of the most successful teams in Formula One, having won over 150 races, 11 Drivers' Championships and 8 Constructors' Championships. Autosport judges McLaren to have "bigger, more sophisticated" technical resources than any other team and a resultant higher development rate throughout a season. However it states that "operationally it is not as slick Ferrari, and this typically shows during moments of high stress. In such moments it's a team with a tendency to rely too much on its vast technical databank and not enough on the intuition of a single person making the call."

1960s

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.

A further three podium finishes followed for Bruce in F1: 1969, 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