Bruce McLaren
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Bruce Leslie McLaren (30 August 1937 – 2 June 1970), born in Auckland, New Zealand, was a race-car designer, driver, engineer and inventor.
His name lives on in the McLaren team which has been one of the most successful in Formula One championship history, with McLaren cars and drivers winning a total of 20 world championships. McLaren cars totally dominated CanAm sports car racing with 56 wins, a considerable number of them with him behind the wheel, between 1967 and 1972 (and five constructors’ championships), and have won three Indianapolis 500 races, as well as 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring.
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Early life
As a nine year old, McLaren contracted Perthes disease in his hip which left his left leg shorter than the right. He spent two years in traction, but later often had a slight limp.
Les and Ruth McLaren, his parents, owned a service station and workshop in Upland Road, Remuera, Auckland. Bruce spent all of his free hours hanging around the workshop.
Career
Les McLaren restored an aging Austin 7 Ulster which 14-year-old Bruce used in 1952 when he entered his first competition, a hillclimb. Two years later he took part in his first real race and showed promise. He moved up from the Austin to a Ford 10 special and an Austin-Healey, then an F2 Cooper-Climax sports. He immediately began to modify and improve it—and master it—so much so that he was runner-up in the 1957–8 New Zealand championship series.
Grand Prix
His performance in the New Zealand Grand Prix in 1958 was noted by great Australian driver Jack Brabham (who would later invite McLaren to drive for him). Because of his obvious potential the New Zealand International Grand Prix organisation selected him for its ‘Driver in Europe’ scheme designed to give a promising Kiwi driver year-round experience with the best in the world. McLaren was the first recipient, to be followed by others later including Denny Hulme.
McLaren went to Cooper and stayed seven years. He raced in F2 and was entered in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in which F2 and F1 cars competed together. He astounded the motor racing fraternity by being first F2, and fifth overall, in a field of the best drivers in the world.
McLaren joined the Cooper factory F1 team alongside Jack Brabham in 1959 and won the 1959 United States Grand Prix at age 22 years 80 days, becoming the youngest ever GP winner up to that time. He followed that with a win in the Argentina Grand Prix, the first race of the 1960 Formula One season, and he would finish runner-up that season to Brabham. (Forty three years later, another Kiwi racer, Scott Dixon, would become the youngest ever winner in any major open-wheel racing formula anywhere in the world when he won the CART Nazareth (Pennsylvania, USA) 225 when 20 years, 9 months and 14 days old.)
McLaren won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1962, eventually finishing a fine third in the championship that year. The next year he founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, which remains in the Formula One championship simply as Team McLaren. McLaren continued to race and win in Coopers (including the New Zealand GP in 1964).
McLaren left Cooper at the end of 1965, and announced his own GP racing team, with co-driver and fellow Kiwi Chris Amon. Amon left in 1967 to drive for Ferrari. In 1968, McLaren was joined by another fellow Kiwi Denny Hulme, who had become world champion in 1967 with Brabham. McLaren took his fourth career win racing his own McLaren car at Spa in 1968, achieving the team's first Grand Prix win. Hulme won twice in the McLaren-Ford. The 1969 championship was also a success, with McLaren finishing 3rd in the standings despite taking no wins. In tribute to his homeland, McLaren's cars featured the "speedy Kiwi" logo.
Can-Am Series
It was in powerful sports car racing where McLaren's design flair and ingenuity were graphically demonstrated. Just as the Can-Am began to become very popular with fans in Canada and the U.S., the new McLaren cars finished second twice, and third twice, in six races.
In 1967 they won five of six races and in 1968, four of six. The following year McLarens proved unbeatable, winning 11 of 11 races. In two races, they finished 1-2-3. (McLaren, Hulme and Mark Donohue).
In 1966 he and co-driver Chris Amon won the prestigious 24 Hour race at Le Mans in a Ford GT40.
Death
Bruce McLaren died (aged 32) when his Can-Am car crashed on the Lavant Straight just before Woodcote corner at Goodwood Circuit in England on 2 June 1970. He had been testing his new M8D when the rear body work came adrift at speed. The loss of aerodynamic downforce destabilized the car, which spun, left the track and hit a bunker used as a flag station.
Motorsport author Eoin Young has noted that Bruce McLaren had "virtually penned his own epitaph" in his 1964 book From the Cockpit. Referring to the death of team mate Timmy Mayer, McLaren had written:
"The news that he had died instantly was a terrible shock to all of us, but who is to say that he had not seen more, done more and learned more in his few years than many people do in a lifetime? To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one’s ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone."
Legacy
- Bruce McLaren Intermediate School in West Auckland was named after him shortly after his death. It was originally going to be called Henderson South Intermediate.
- In 2000 Motorsport NZ and the Prodrive Trust created The Bruce McLaren Scholarship to help up and coming New Zealand racing drivers.
- Inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.
- Inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1991.
- Inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1995.
- The Bruce McLaren Trust, based in Auckland, New Zealand, perpetuates his memory and runs a small museum from the flat where Bruce grew up (above a petrol station in Remuera)
- On January 20, 2007, at New Zealand's round of the A1 Grand Prix series, it was announced that there is to be a movie made about Bruce McLaren.[2]
- The University of Auckland Formula SAE team, use Bruce's racing number 47 as their car number in memory of Bruce.
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | WDC | Pts.[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1958 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T45 F2 | Climax Straight-4 | ARG |
MON |
NED |
500 |
BEL |
FRA |
GBR |
GER 5 |
POR |
ITA |
MOR 12 |
NC | 0 | ||
| 1959 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T45 F2 | Climax Straight-4 | MON 5 |
500 |
NED |
6th | 16.5 | ||||||||||
| Cooper T51 | FRA 5 |
GBR 3 |
GER Ret |
POR Ret |
ITA Ret |
USA 1 |
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| 1960 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T51 | Climax Straight-4 | ARG 1 |
2nd | 34 (37) | ||||||||||||
| Cooper T53 | MON 2 |
500 |
NED Ret |
BEL 2 |
FRA 3 |
GBR 4 |
POR 2 |
ITA |
USA 3 |
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| 1961 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T55 | Climax V8 | MON 6 |
NED 12 |
BEL Ret |
FRA 5 |
GBR 8 |
GER 6 |
ITA 3 |
USA 4 |
8th | 11 | |||||
| 1962 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T60 | Climax V8 | NED Ret |
MON 1 |
BEL Ret |
FRA 4 |
GBR 3 |
GER 5 |
ITA 3 |
USA 3 |
RSA 2 |
3rd | 27 (32) | ||||
| 1963 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T66 | Climax V8 | MON 3 |
BEL 2 |
NED Ret |
FRA 12 |
GBR Ret |
GER Ret |
ITA 3 |
USA 11 |
MEX Ret |
RSA 4 |
6th | 17 | |||
| 1964 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T66 | Climax V8 | MON Ret |
7th | 13 | ||||||||||||
| Cooper T73 | NED 7 |
BEL 2 |
FRA 6 |
GBR Ret |
GER Ret |
AUT Ret |
ITA 2 |
USA Ret |
MEX 7 |
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| 1965 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T73 | Climax V8 | RSA 5 |
9th | 10 | ||||||||||||
| Cooper T77 | MON 5 |
BEL 3 |
FRA Ret |
GBR 10 |
NED Ret |
GER Ret |
ITA 5 |
USA Ret |
MEX Ret |
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| 1966 | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | McLaren M2B | Ford V8 | MON Ret |
USA 5 |
MEX Ret |
16th | 3 | ||||||||||
| Serenissima V8 | BEL DNS |
FRA |
GBR 6 |
NED DNS |
GER |
ITA |
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| 1967 | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | McLaren M4B | BRM V8 | RSA |
MON 4 |
NED Ret |
BEL |
14th | 3 | |||||||||
| Anglo American Racers | Eagle T1G | Weslake V12 | FRA Ret |
GBR Ret |
GER Ret |
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| Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | McLaren M5A | BRM V12 | CAN 7 |
ITA Ret |
USA Ret |
MEX Ret |
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| 1968 | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | McLaren M7A | Cosworth V8 | RSA |
ESP Ret |
MON Ret |
BEL 1 |
NED Ret |
FRA 8 |
GBR 7 |
GER 13 |
ITA Ret |
CAN 2 |
USA 6 |
MEX 2 |
5th | 22 | |
| 1969 | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | McLaren M7A | Cosworth V8 | RSA 5 |
3rd | 26 | ||||||||||||
| McLaren M7C | ESP 2 |
MON 5 |
NED Ret |
FRA 4 |
GBR 3 |
GER 3 |
ITA 4 |
CAN 5 |
USA DNS |
MEX DNS |
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| 1970 | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | McLaren M14A | Cosworth V8 | RSA Ret |
ESP 2 |
MON Ret |
BEL |
NED |
FRA |
GBR |
GER |
AUT |
ITA |
CAN |
USA |
MEX |
14th | 6 |
Non-Championship results
() (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | LOM | GLV | PAU | BRX 2 |
VIE | AIN 2 |
SYR WD |
NAP | LON | SIL Ret |
SOL 4 |
KAN | DAN | MOD | FLG | OUL 3 |
LEW | VAL | RAN | NAT | RSA | |||
| 1962 | CAP | BRX | LOM | LAV 1 |
GLV 2 |
PAU | AIN 2 |
INT 5 |
NAP | MAL | CLP 3 |
RMS 1 |
SOL | KAN | MED | DAN | OUL Ret |
MEX Ret |
RAN | NAT | ||||
| 1963 | LOM 4 |
GLV 2 |
PAU | IMO | SYR | AIN 5 |
INT 2 |
ROM | SOL | KAN | MED | AUT | OUL 6 |
RAN | ||||||||||
| 1964 | DMT 3 |
NWT Ret |
SYR | AIN Ret |
INT 15 |
SOL | MED | RAN | ||||||||||||||||
| 1965 | ROC 5 |
SYR | SMT 4 |
INT 6 |
MED | RAN | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1967 | ROC Ret |
SPR 5 |
INT 5 |
SYR | OUL | ESP | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1968 | ROC 1 |
INT 2 |
OUL | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 1969 | ROC Ret |
INT 6 |
MAD | OUL | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1970 | ROC Ret |
INT 4 |
OUL |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Up until 1990, not all points scored by a driver contributed to their final World Championship tally (see list of pointscoring systems for more information). Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.
- ↑ "McLaren film is launched". Grandprix.com. 2007-01-19. http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17967.html. Retrieved 2007-01-20.
External links
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by None |
Tasman Series Champion 1964 |
Succeeded by Jim Clark |
| Preceded by Jochen Rindt Masten Gregory |
Winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1966 with: Chris Amon |
Succeeded by Dan Gurney A.J. Foyt |
| Preceded by John Surtees |
Can-Am Champion 1967 |
Succeeded by Denny Hulme |
| Preceded by Dan Gurney |
Brands Hatch Race of Champions winner 1968 |
Succeeded by Jackie Stewart |
| Preceded by Denny Hulme |
Can-Am Champion 1969 |
Succeeded by Denny Hulme |
| Records | ||
| Preceded by Troy Ruttman 22 years, 80 days (1952 Indianapolis 500) |
Youngest Driver to score Points in Formula One 21 years, 253 days (1959 Monaco Grand Prix) |
Succeeded by Ricardo Rodríguez 20 years, 123 days (1962 Belgian GP) |
| Preceded by Stirling Moss 24 years, 303 days (1954 British GP) |
Youngest driver to set Fastest Lap in Formula One 21 years, 322 days (1959 British Grand Prix) |
Succeeded by Fernando Alonso 21 years, 321 days (2003 Canadian GP) |
| Preceded by Troy Ruttman 22 years, 80 days (1952 Indianapolis 500) |
Youngest Driver to score a Podium Position in Formula One 21 years, 322 days (1959 British Grand Prix) |
Succeeded by Elio de Angelis 21 years, 307 days (1980 Brazilian GP) |
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