McLaren Formula One Auto Racing Team

Legendary McLaren F1 Racing Team

The McLaren Motor Racing team was first founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren. The team’s Grand Prix debut was made at the Monaco track in 1966 and, despite some early technical difficulties, Team McLaren has never looked back. By 1968 the team had earned their first win with Bruce McLaren himself behind the wheel at the Belgium Grand Prix. Today the McLaren F1 Racing Team is seen as one of the most successful Formula One teams. Their Grand Prix successes are surpassed only by Ferrari and for a long period of time they dominated the world of Grand Prix racing.

Not long after McLaren’s first Grand Prix win in 1968, driver James Hunt won the team’s first Driver’s Championship. That was in 1976 and the win was a sign of things to come. By 1984, Niki Lauda won a Grand Prix Championship on behalf of the McLaren team. The 1980’s proved to be a phenomenal decade for the team and it enjoyed plenty of success during that period. In fact, McLaren emerged to completely dominate the Formula One racing scene. However, the team’s success started to fade about midway through the 1990’s when Honda decided to drop out of Formula One racing. The team then went through a period of experimentation – switching from manufacturer to manufacturer in an attempt to find a winning combination. Eventually McLaren found that the Mercedes-Ilmor engine showed promise and they started a slow climb back to success. At about this time Team McLaren also lost their Marlboro sponsorship and subsequent trade-mark red and white livery. The team took up the silver Mercedes livery in its place and the change could be said to be an appropriate display of the ending of one period for the team and the beginning of another.

Mercedes has continued to supply the team engine and today the full name of the team is Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. It is based in Woking, Surrey in the UK and the team principle is Ron Dennis. Since the beginning of the 2007 season the team’s drivers include Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton with potential for more great drivers to join the ranks soon. The team has also enjoyed just recently signed Vodafone on as a new title sponsor. To date, McLaren has won 8 Constructor Championships, 11 Driver Championships, and 148 victories. With the recent retirement of Michael Schumacher, there is a good possibility that McLaren will prove to provide stiffer competition for Ferrari in the near future.