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History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's McLaren page on 2 December 2020, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
McLaren Racing Limited is a British motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre, Woking, Surrey, England. McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor and also has a history of competing in American open wheel racing as both an entrant and a chassis constructor, and has won the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) sports car racing championship. The team is the second oldest active, and second most successful Formula One team after Ferrari, having won 182 races, 12 Drivers' Championships and eight Constructors' Championships. The team is a wholly owned subsidiary of the McLaren Group.
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, which 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. The year 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 the team took 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 However, by the mid-1990s, Honda had withdrawn from Formula One, Senna had moved to Williams, and the team went three seasons without a win.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.
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's McLaren Automotive page on 2 December 2020, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
McLaren Automotive (formerly known as McLaren Cars) is a British automotive manufacturer based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey. The main products of the company are super cars, which are produced in-house in designated production facilities. In July 2017, McLaren Automotive became a 100% owned subsidiary of the wider McLaren Group.
McLaren Automotive replaced McLaren Cars in 2010. McLaren Cars was founded in 1985. The company went on to release the McLaren F1 in 1992. Between 1994 and 2010, McLaren Cars was registered as a 'dormant company', before the founding of McLaren Automotive in 2010. The new company was originally separate from the existing McLaren companies to enable investment in the new venture, but was brought together in July 2017 after Ron Dennis sold his shares in McLaren Automotive and McLaren Technology Group.
McLaren's Formula One founder Bruce McLaren was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1937. McLaren learned about cars and engineering at his parent's service station and workshop in his hometown, Auckland, New Zealand. By 15, he had entered a local hillclimb in an Austin 7 Ulster; winning his first race in the car. In 1958, McLaren arrived in the United Kingdom with the ‘Driver to Europe’ scheme, intended to help Australian and New Zealand racers to compete in Europe. His mentor, Jack Brabham introduced him to Cooper Cars, a small team based in Surbiton, Surrey. Auspiciously starting his Formula One career in 1958, McLaren joined the Formula One team a year later. That same year, he won the US Grand Prix at age 22, making him the youngest Grand Prix winner to that date. He stayed with Cooper for a further seven years, winning three more Grands Prix and other races, driving for Jaguar and Aston Martin, & winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 with Ford.
McLaren founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing in 1963. A year later, the company built the first McLaren race car – the M1A; 24 were produced. Its successor, the M1B, allowed McLaren into the Can-Am championship and emerged the dominant victor with 43 victories, almost three times more than rival Porsche. In 1965, the first McLaren Formula One car, the M2B, debuted at the Monaco Grand Prix.
After his victories and time in the F3, McLaren was designing and testing a prototype M6GT-registered OBH 500H, a light sports car with an estimated top speed of 165 mph and zero to 100 mph time of eight seconds. However, McLaren died in a car accident in 1970 before the prototype could be completed.
In 1980, the company merged with Ron Dennis’ Project 4 Racing team. The merger brought back designer, John Barnard, interested in using carbon fibre composite. Carbon fibre was already used in aerospace applications but had never been applied to a complete racing car monocoque. McLaren pioneered the use of carbon fibre in motor racing with its new car, the MP4/1, bringing new levels of rigidity and driver safety to Formula 1. In August 1988, Dennis, Team Principal and Gordon Murray started to develop a new car and in 1992, the F1 was launched with a total production run of just 106 units.
Following a brief collaboration with Mercedes-Benz for the SLR McLaren, McLaren Automotive was re-launched as a standalone manufacturer in 2010, spinning off McLaren Racing. The company launched the 12C in 2011 and the Spider model in 2012. The limited-run P1 went into production in 2013 and ended in 2015. After introducing a business plan to release a car or model every year, the company unveiled the 650S in Coupé and Spider models in 2014, and unveiled the new Sports Series range comprising the McLaren 570S and 540C in 2015. The company debuted a car for kids, the P1TM, after the P1, in September 2016 and announced the same month that they are developing a powerful battery for Formula E. On October 2016, councillors were reported to be looking at a proposition for land opposite of the McLaren Technology Centre for construction and announced the "Pure McLaren Arctic Experience" the same month, an event where a participant is trained to drive a 570S in the Arctic Circle.
Championships Won by McLaren
Manufacturer's championships won by McLaren.
| Year | Series | Model/Engine |
|---|---|---|
| 1974 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Ford Engines |
| 1984 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | TAG Engines |
| 1985 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | TAG Engines |
| 1988 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Honda Engines |
| 1989 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Honda Engines |
| 1990 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Honda Engines |
| 1991 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Honda Engines |
| 1998 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Mercedes Engines |
Championships Won in McLarens
Drivers' championships won driving McLaren cars.
| Year | Series | Driver | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Emerson Fittipaldi | Ford Engines |
| 1976 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | James Hunt | Ford Engines |
| 1984 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Niki Lauda | TAG Engines |
| 1985 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Alain Prost | TAG Engines |
| 1986 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Alain Prost | TAG Engines |
| 1988 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Ayrton Senna | Honda Engines |
| 1989 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Alain Prost | Honda Engines |
| 1990 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Ayrton Senna | Honda Engines |
| 1991 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Ayrton Senna | Honda Engines |
| 1998 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Mika Hakkinen | Mercedes Engines |
| 1999 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Mika Hakkinen | Mercedes Engines |
| 2008 | FIA Formula 1 World Championship | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes Engines |
