Photos courtesy of McLaren Racing
Born from humble beginnings, McLaren has become one of the world’s biggest brand names on both the racetracks, thanks to its Formula 1 racing successes, and on the roads, due to its sensational supercars. A dramatic story over six decades in the making, McLaren is once again on top in F1, but it’s not all been smooth sailing…
New Zealander Bruce McLaren (pictured below) – who was a fine engineer and racing driver in equal measure – founded the company in 1963, and scored its maiden Formula 1 Grand Prix victory himself in the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix in a papaya-colored M7A chassis around the fearsome 8.7-mile Spa-Francorchamps track. Tragically, Bruce suffered fatal injuries in one of his own Can-Am sports cars in testing at Goodwood in 1970.
For most companies, the death of its creator would have meant the end of the road. But for McLaren, it spelled its first of several rejuvenation phases that have led to it being the second-oldest active team and the second-most successful F1 team of all time – second-only to the mighty Ferrari.
American Teddy Mayer, who was Bruce’s business partner, took over the helm to lead McLaren to its first F1 Constructors’ Championship in 1974, when Emerson Fittipaldi also won its maiden Drivers’ title having switched from Lotus after falling out with its owner Colin Chapman. Fittipaldi brought money from Marlboro cigarettes, and after he departed, James Hunt (below) scored its second World Championship in 1976, the season immortalized in celluloid by the film Rush.
Its second rejuvenation came in 1981, when the team merged (and then was bought out completely) by Britain’s Ron Dennis and his Project 4 team – after which McLaren’s ‘M’ nomenclature of chassis names became ‘MP4’. Under Dennis, along with his business partner Mansour Ojjeh of TAG, factory deals for Porsche and then Honda engines led to an incredible era of success, with Niki Lauda (1984), Alain Prost (1985, ’86 and ’89) and Ayrton Senna (1988, ’90 and ’91) all claiming Drivers’ Championships, and McLaren adding another six Constructors’ titles in its richest vein of form in its history.
Dennis stayed on for another rebirth – following a fallow period hastened by Prost, Honda and Senna (above) exiting – as the holy trinity of factory Mercedes engines, West cigarettes sponsorship and star designer Adrian Newey led to two more Drivers’ titles for flying Finn Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and ’99 (plus another Constructors’ title) before Ferrari dominated the early 2000s with Michael Schumacher. The final Drivers’ Championship under Dennis’s stewardship was scored by his young protégé Lewis Hamilton, who beat Ferrari’s Felipe Massa by a solitary point in the dramatic 2008 title decider in Brazil.
Dennis stepped down as McLaren’s F1 chief in 2009, and in subsequent years its fortunes took a downturn, especially when Mercedes bought the Brawn team and later signed Hamilton, and, after returning as the operation’s CEO, Dennis was brutally ousted from the company completely in 2016, and its F1 chassis became named ‘MCL’ and not ‘MP4’.
By now, the team was at its lowest point for ages, especially after an ill-fated period with woeful Honda engines (who at least paid to underperform), and was in dire need of a renewed vigor. Enter the American entrepreneur Zak Brown, already executive director of McLaren Technology Group, who became CEO of McLaren Racing following an operational restructuring. While far from an overnight success, Brown worked diligently to bring McLaren back to the top – and after a couple of false dawns, it won back-to-back Constructors’ Championships in 2024 and ’25, having settled on the fantastically balanced driver pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Brown’s new book, Seven Tenths of a Second, is so-called after the final pit stop at the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where the outcome of McLaren’s first Constructors’ title since 1998 was effectively decided by that tiny margin. And to find those fractions of a second, that define success or failure, Brown has managed to scale McLaren’s mountain like those who’ve gone before him, as he tells us via the duPont REGISTRY Talks podcast.
“We weren't in good shape,” admits Brown of the time he took over the team. “I didn't know how bad it was. When I entered, everyone was kind of pointing the fingers at Honda and while certainly their engine wasn’t reliable or didn't have the power it needed, we were a big contributor to where we were. And that became evident when we stuck the Renault engine in and we went from ninth to sixth, but I was still like ‘Hey guys, I thought we were supposed to be first.’
“We hadn't treated our partners well, got them results, been flexible or adaptable. We were kind of still acting like we were the dominant team, but we were ninth! Our sponsorship was at a record low. Our fans were obviously unhappy. Team culture was very political, very unhealthy. And other than that… things were great! [Zak chuckles, but you sense that gallows humor was required back then – Ed]
“But what was great was I knew we had to have great people in here. We had people in here that are 20, 30, 40 years at McLaren. And we’ve got a great brand. So, we needed to go from being this inclusive, cold, Darth Vader-like look, where our cars were literally black and gray. All our fans were saying, ‘bring back Papaya!’ So, it was like, let’s do that and bring some energy, let’s become inclusive and let people see who our drivers are – we just became a friendly, warm environment, warm colors, got people to kind of believe on where we were going.
“It helped people believe we’re McLaren, just like if the New York Yankees or New England Patriots say, ‘Look! We're on our way back’ – you can get people to believe, from fans to sponsors to employees. Once we reversed that, and got some forward momentum, it was almost a straight climb to the top. We bounced back quickly. And now, the energy, the environment, the passion – it’s all back.”
And now his challenge is to keep the team on top, despite the challenges of Red Bull Racing, Ferrari and Mercedes.
“It's very difficult sport,” he adds. “We're not going to win 13 races every year forever. So, we need to keep our feet on the ground. But what we need to do is not fall so far back that we're always in those top four teams that are always a threat. You can demand perfection, but you never get perfection, right? But even though we're not gonna get it perfect, we're gonna keep trying.”
And that’s been McLaren all over. Its fortunes have waxed and waned across the decades – great drivers, amazing cars, powerful engines and talented team owners and designers have all come and gone – yet Bruce’s name over the door has remained the same, and thanks to Brown its early papaya colors (which was actually Meyer’s idea for a distinctive corporate identity that looked good on TV) have returned.
The good times are rolling for McLaren once more.
