Bruce McLaren, born in Auckland New Zealand on the 30th of August 1937 was the man behind the McLaren marquee. He made a far greater impact on the Formula One world than the sum of his results as a driver.
He started driving in his homeland in the mid 1950's and his advancement to single seaters was swift, winning a scholarship to race in Europe in 1958 in Formula Two. His Formula one debut came the following year with Cooper, and by the time the season was over, he was a regularly scoring points, actually winning the final race of the season at Sebring making him the youngest ever Grand Prix driver. He was only 22. He played the role of number two to Jack Brabham in 1960, but took over the role of number one driver the following year when Brabham left the team. Unfortunately, several frustrating seasons were to follow before he formed his own team. Inspired by Jack Brabham, he formed ' Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd.' and constructed his own cars. He built this company into a successful professional outfit that earned a reputation for technical excellence.His first Formula One chassis was designed by Robin Heard and built in 1966. Unfortunately, the first year of the 3-litre formula made suitable power units extremely scarce and he had to turn to an underpowered Italian Serenissima engine and an overweight Ford. McLaren won the first point for his team in the British Grand Prix in 1966 when he finished sixth after starting from thirteenth on the grid. Herd's Ford Cosworth DFV-powered M7 became a potent weapon and McLaren gave it its maiden victory in the Race of Champions. Enticing his friend and world champion, Danny Hulme to join him in 1968, Danny and the McLaren fought a championship down to the wire, but succumbed to Graham Hill in the final races of the season.In the North American CanAm sports cars series, the McLaren's of Bruce and Danny were a formidable force, but sadly in June of 1970, Bruce McLaren was killed while testing a CanAm at Goodwood.His legacy continues to this day and although the M7 was good, the car that was to put McLaren on the map in Formula One was the M23 with which Denny Hulme and Peter Revson won three races in 1973. McLaren's first Constructors Crown came in 1974 after Emerson Fittipaldi joined the team after leaving Team Lotus. He took the title after three wins and a number of consistent point scoring finishes. He didn't make it two from two as they lost out to Niki Lauda and Ferrari in 1975 and Fittipaldi left the team at the end of the season. James Hunt replaced him and after a very dramatic season, he won the drivers title by one point but Ferrari took the constructors title. Although Hunt won another three races in 1977, the McLaren appeared to be overtaken by the incoming ground-effect technology.Success returned to the team in 1984 after the team's principal, Teddy Mayer, sold part of the company to Ron Dennis, who at the time was the team boss for the Project Four F2 team. Dennis brought meticulous attention to detail to the team and combined with designer John Barnard, they brought to life one of the Formula One classics, the carbon fibre MP4. The team had been struggling with normally aspirated engines against the emerging turbos in 1983, but the debut of the TAG-badged Porsche showed promise.In 1984 Dennis signed Alain Prost from Renault, and after urging Lauda out of retirement to join McLaren in 82, he now had all the ingredients of a super team.Together Prost and Lauda dominated that first year together, with Prost winning seven races to Lauda's five. Lauda took the title by the smallest of margins, 72 to 71.5. Prost got his own back, taking the title for himself and McLaren the following year, and although he won it again in '86, the Williams Honda combination of Mansell and Piquet were clearly superior.In 1988, McLaren had the ultimate team, consisting of Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, the stunning MP4/4 chassis and Honda turbo engines. They totally dominated, winning fifteen of the sixteen races that season. Senna won the team its first title since 1985 and Prost won it again in 1989.Things were not good between the team-mates and Prost left for Ferrari at the end of the season. Senna went on to win the title two more years in a row, but Honda withdrew in 1992, leaving the team with customer Ford engines. Senna managed five more wins with the team in 1993, before leaving for Williams.McLaren turned to Peugeot engines in 1994, and what followed was a disastrous campaign that didn't yield any wins, so the following season the team started a long-term relationship with Mercedes.The following two seasons yielded little in terms of hard results for a team so used to championship success. David Coulthard was the one to give the McLaren Mercedes partnership as he took the chequered flag at the 1997 Australian Grand Prix. Coulthard won again at the Italian Grand Prix and Mika Hakkinen secured his first victory at the season finale in Jerez.1998 saw the dominance of the team begin again. From the beginning of the season, both Hakkinen and David were the class of the field, winning five out of the first six races with sheer engineering superiority. Ferrari and Michael Schumacher fought to the end, but McLaren came out on top again, taking the Constructors' and Drivers' crown once again. Mixed blessings followed for the 1999 season. Although the McLaren was still clearly superior, Ferrari and Schumacher continued to close the performance deficit. Mechanical failures, driver errors and pure bad luck hampered the last season of the millennium for the team, which saw Ferrari narrowly take the Constructors' crown in the last race, although Hakkinen retained his crown for a second year.Ferrari dominated from the start of the 2000 season while McLaren struggled with poor reliability. Coulthard took second place in the Brazilian Grand Prix; however he was later disqualified for a technical infringement. By the time the third race in 2001 was completed, the Woking outfit knew that Ferrari was going to be extremely hard to beat and although Coulthard battled courageously against his German rival, the Scot finished a distant second. Meanwhile after what turned out to be a disappointing year, double world champion Mika Hakkinen announced that he would be retiring from F1 in 2002. Countryman Kimi Raikkonen replaced the Finn, the young driver opting to leave Sauber for a long-term contract with the Mercedes powered outfit.A maiden victory was on the cards at Magny Cours but unfortunately fro Raikkonen it fell by the wayside after his McLaren lost traction after running through oil from another car. The team dropped back a rung and finished third on the Constructors' ladder behind Ferrari and Williams and the season was classed as a disappointment.Both Raikkonen and Coulthard were forced to contest the whole of the 2003 season using a modified version of the MP4/17 as the new car failed to make its debut. Despite this setback Raikkonen claimed second place in the title race, losing by a mere two points. McLaren again finished in third place.McLaren Mercedes looked to be a team in disarray during the first half of the 2004 season. Come the season finale, the team had turned it all around and looked strong and very much back where they expect to be - the sharp end of the field with Raikkonen taking the Belgian Grand Prix victory.For 2005, the targets were higher with Juan Pablo Montoya joining Raikkonen while the MP4/20 proved fast from the outset. It was a slow start to the season for the team as they worked hard on the suspension geometry to get the best out of the Michelin rubber in qualifying trim, but from the fourth round of the championship at Imola, the team had the pace to challenge for race wins each time out.Raikkonen was on target for the win at Imola until a driveshaft failure and won the next two races in Spain and Monte Carlo. He was on target to win again at Nurburgring when his flat spotted tyre forced a suspension failure on the final lap. Raikkonen bounced back to win in Canada.Raikkonen's title rival Fernando Alonso was meanwhile continuing to finish each race and Raikkonen would lose out not in terms of speed, but in terms of reliability. Engine failures in practice for the French, British and Italian races saw him dropping ten positions on the grid as a penalty and the Finn was unable to challenge for wins in those races. In Germany he retired from the race in the lead with another engine failure but dominant wins in Hungary, Turkey, Belgium and Japan moved him a solid second in the standings.McLaren finished the season with the fastest package but lost out to Renault in the Constructors' race by just nine points. Juan Pablo Montoya meanwhile missed two races with a shoulder injury but took wins in Britain and Brazil on his way to fourth in the standings.Heading into the 2006 season, the team had lost the design talents of Adrian Newey to Red Bull and while pre-season testing was promising, they would end the season having failed to win a race for the first time in a decade.Raikkonen was a regular podium contender and finished a firm fifth in the championship but it was a far from easy season for the team. Juan Pablo Montoya was unable to match the pace of Raikkonen and following an incident at the US Grand Prix, in which he ran into the back of his team-mate, Montoya announced he had had enough of Formula One and would be joining Chip Ganassi racing in NASCAR in 2007. This did not go down well with the team and it was therefore little surprise that test driver Pedro de la Rosa took over Montoya's ride with immediate effect.Raikkonen would pick up six podium positions while de la Rosa would finish second at the Hungarian Grand Prix but generally struggled with his MP4/21 package. The team finished third in the constructors' championship.For 2007, Fernando Alonso takes over Raikkonen’s seat while long-time protégé Lewis Hamilton joins the double World Champion in what is a very strong driver line-up.Lewis Hamilton #2 Driver
Long-time McLaren Mercedes protégé Lewis Hamilton joins the Formula One grid in 2007 alongside double World Champion Fernando Alonso. The British racer, who first met McLaren boss Ron Dennis aged ten at the Autosport Awards ceremony, gets the nod for the forthcoming season on the back of his impressive GP2 campaign in which he won the title in his first season. Hamilton, whose grandfather moved to the UK from Grenada in the 1950s, started his rise to the pinnacle of the sport in karts in 1995 taking top honours in the Masters at Bercy in 2000. A move to single seaters followed in 2001 with Hamilton taking part in the Formula Renault Winter Series finishing fifth overall. 2002 saw Hamilton back in Formula Renault, recording three wins with Manor Motorsport and finishing third in the championship standings.The championship followed in 2003 – again with Manor Motorsport – and Hamilton was very much into his stride. Wins in the F3 Euroseries before the championship followed in 2005 with ASM. A jump up to GP2 did not daunt Hamilton as he won the title in style from Nelson Piquet Jr with ART Grand Prix. Showing his pure race craft, Hamilton also pulled off the pass of the season with an aggressive and daring move from third to first at the high speed Becketts complex at Silverstone.The McLaren Mercedes squad had Hamilton under its protective wing since the age of 12 and with Juan Pablo Montoya making a sudden move to NASCAR and falling out of favour with the Woking based team, Hamilton’s name was suddenly in the frame for the race seat with the team in 2007.Picking Hamilton, who will be 22 when he makes his Grand Prix debut, over long-time test driver Pedro de la Rosa, the British rising star has a steep learning curve ahead of him in 2007. Hamilton has however proven up to the task in every category of motorsport in his short career to date and it is unlikely that he will be overawed in the prospect of moving up to Formula One and teaming up with Fernando Alonso.Heikki Kovalainen
Heikki Kovalainen burst onto the international stage by winning the Race of Champions in December 2004. Taking on and beating no less than Sebastien Loeb in his own WRC rally contender in the final.Now on the cusp of a drive in Formula One, the Finn rose up through the ranks of Karting before moving to the British Formula Renault series in 2001. A move to British F3 the following season saw him take five wins and finish third in the championship and join the Renault Driver Development programme.A move to World Series by Nissan (Now World Series by Renault) in 2003 saw Kovalainen take the runner-up position in 2003, before taking the title the next year. Following his success at Stade de France at the end of the season, he joined Arden International to compete in the fledging GP2 series.After a strong start to the season, Kovalainen lost out to Nico Rosberg in the championship, but now under the guidance of Flavio Briatore and Renault, was bust testing for the Anglo-French team.Kovalainen took a step back from racing activities in 2006 and continued his testing role with Renault, and with Fernando Alonso moving to McLaren Mercedes, the team wasted little time in announcing Kovalainen as Giancarlo Fisichella's team-mate at Renault in 2007.I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
