The Stats
FIRST GP: 1966 | GPS: 966 | Titles: 8 | WINS: 188 | POLES: 163 | PODIUMS: 522
| Full Team Name | McLaren F1 Team |
| Base | Woking, UK |
| Team Principal | Andrea Stella |
| Technical Director | Peter Prodromou/Neil Houldey |
| Chassis | MCL38 |
| Engine | Mercedes-AMG F1 M15 |
| First Podium | Spain 68 | Hulme |
| First Win | Belgium 68 | McLaren |
| Last Win | Singapore 24 | Norris |
| Last Podium | Mexico City 24 | Norris |
| Most Successful Track | Circuit de Monaco, Monaco | 15 wins, 8 x 2nd, 3 x 3rd |
The Drivers
Lando Norris
AGE: 24 | GPS: 125 | CHAMP. BEST: 6th | Wins: 3 | Poles: 8 | PODIUMS: 25
Oscar Piastri
AGE: 23 | GPS: 42 | CHAMP. BEST: 9th | Wins: 2 | Grid Best: 2nd | Podiums: 9
The Bio
Bruce McLaren started the team, which still bears his name today, in 1966 and took their first victory at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1968. He was sadly killed during a test of the team’s Can-Am car at Goodwood in 1970, but the team carried on in his honour and won its first Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships in 1974 after 1972 World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi had joined. James Hunt then took another drivers’ title for McLaren after his epic battle with Niki Lauda during the 1976 season.
Following this triumph, McLaren suffered something of a dry spell for the best part of a decade before dominating the mid-to-late 80s. A title each for Lauda and Alain Prost was followed by the infamous Senna-Prost partnership. It was incredibly successful – 1988 is the most dominant season in F1 history with 15 of 16 races won – but ultimately too combustible to last. Prost left in 1990 and Ayrton Senna won two further championship doubles for the team.
Williams and Benetton then took over at the top for the majority of the 90s, before Mika Häkkinen defeated Ferrari for two championships in 1998 and 1999. McLaren remained in the fight over the next few years but were steamrollered by the Michael Schumacher-powered Ferrari juggernaut. By 2007, they had produced the best car on the grid but another combustible partnership in the shape of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton would prove their undoing.
In-fighting within the team that year cost them the drivers’ title and brought about the ‘Spygate’ controversy that saw McLaren thrown out of the World Constructors’ Championship and fined $100 million. A more harmonious setup the following year saw Hamilton claim his first World Drivers’ Championship in the most dramatic of fashions, with a pass at the last corner of the last lap of the last race.
That would prove to be the last McLaren title to date, however. The new regulations in 2009 saw the team fall back and then, after a few years struggling to keep up with Red Bull, the wheels really fell off in the hybrid era. An ill-fated partnership with Honda saw McLaren reach their nadir with ninth-placed finishes in the constructors’ standings in 2015 and 2017.
This brought about a total overhaul of the team’s structure and, under the new management of CEO Zak Brown, McLaren’s fortunes appear to be turning around. Third place in the constructors’ standings in 2020 and a win at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix were solid stepping stones.
The Photos
