McLaren F1 are the second oldest Formula One team in existence today, only Ferrari have competed in more championship battles since 1950. The team was founded by New Zealand racing driver Bruce McLaren first entered F1 at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix with just one entry driven by the founder himself.

Bruce qualified his Ford powered McLaren in tenth place but suffered an oil leak in the principality which forced him to retire from the Grand Prix. He was not alone as F1 was in an era where speed was favoured over reliability which saw just four drivers complete the Monaco race with Jackie Steward winning in his BRM.

When Bruce died testing a CAM-AM car McLaren at the Goodwood motor circuit in 1970, the team looked as though it may implode. Yet Teddy Mayer managed to keep the lights on in the factory and led the team to their first F1 constructors’ championship four years later along with James Hunt collecting the drivers’ title.

 

 

 

McLaren second oldest f1 team

1974 also marked the beginning of a long standing relationship with title sponsor Marlboro. Come 1981 and McLaren merged with Ron Dennis Project Four Racing with the team boss soon after buying out the McLaren shareholders to take full control of the team.

This began the team’s most successful era in F1 as McLaren were powered by both Porsche and Honda and Niki Lauda, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna claimed seven drivers’ titles between them whilst the team earned six constructor championships at that time.

The MP4/4 was birthed in 1988 and with Senna and Prost behind the wheel McLaren went on to win all but one of the races that season, a record only broken by Red Bull in 2023.

As Ferrari began to dominate F1 around the turn of the Millennium, McLaren were still a front running team but could not beat the Scuderia. The arrival of a certain lewis Hamilton in 2007 saw him and Alonso duke it out for the top spot within the team, but their rivalry allowed Kimi Raikkonen to slip through and steal the drivers title in 2007 by just one point from the McLaren duo who finished level for the year. Mclaren’s last drivers title was claimed by Hamilton the following season, but their constructors most recent win came before the Ferrari dominance began in 1988.

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McLaren “on the brink”

Now the team has returned to the top of the honours list in 2024, with their first constructors’ championship for twenty six years. Yet just four years ago the team and their road car company were on the brink of collapse, as Zak Brown now reveals.

Enzo Ferrari realised back in the day that he could build and sell motor cars and this would pay for his racing addiction. McLaren has been similarly funded in part by their road car division, but bleak times swept in during 2020 as the world was plunged into a global pandemic.

This hit the McLaren group hard as the road car sales collapsed and costs were committed for the 2021 season but with no revenue to fund them.

“Closing Abu Dhabi ‘20, we were definitely on the brink,” McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown tells speedcafe. “We were paying all our bills, but we were months away, not several months… We knew we could make it through the year, but we were in a situation where if we didn’t have a cash injection, we would have been at risk.

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‘At the bottom of the ninth’

The team had launched legal proceedings to protect it from bankruptcy in June of 2020 and began the painful exercise of cost cutting releasing some 1200 people across the road car business and the racing team.

Efforts were made to raise $190m from the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but they failed. So in a bid to remain solvent, McLaren began selling assets including its prized technology centre in Woking.

“It wasn’t a comfortable place at all,” Brown reflects. “[I] was always confident the shareholders would never let it get there [to insolvency], but it was also clear we needed the investment.

“I could put my head on the pillow at night knowing they’ll back us up if they have to, but it was going to be the ninth inning, to use a baseball term, before they brought in the relief pitcher.”

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F1 landscape shifts

The lifeline came in the guise of MSP Sports Capital, a private investment company who acquired a 15% stake for around $200m. They later increased their stake to 33% which gave Brown the stability he required to plan for the future.

Changes in the F1 landscape also came to Brown’s help, as the concerns over F1 teams not making it out of the pandemic saw the previously resisted cost cap forced through. This meant that prize money for the top team would almost fund entirely their spending allowance each season.

Even those further down the pecking order were now getting the kind of prize money, that was funded just by sponsors in the previous era. With a back ground in sports marketing, brown set about building a sponsor base that today even rivals that of Ferrari.

With the team reorganised and lean and mean, the results began to come. Following their fourth place finish in the 2023 championship, McLaren posted a $15m profit which was a whopping $95m turnaround from its position the previous season.

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McLaren worth quadruples in four years

With prize money now a significant contribution towards the capped limit of spending, McLaren are estimated to have earned $140m from winning this year’s constructors’ championship. Next year they start as favourites for the team title again with Lando Norris looking for his first drivers’ championship.

At the time of the MSP investment, McLaren were valued at around $600m. This summer Forbes published their valuations of all the F1 teams with McLaren now at a staggering $2.2bn, a heft return for MSP.

The tale of team McLaren is one of rags to riches and back again, yet their incredible story of survival and reinvention is almost Disney-esque. As Norris and Piastri seek to plunder during the 2025 F1 campaign, McLaren have proven that even in the cut throat sport of motor racing, near extinction can be followed by greatness.

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Hamilton “in danger” of not fulfilling Ferrari contract

Lewis Hamilton is the only Formula One driver alongside the revered Michael Schumacher who has collected seven world titles, which arguably could have been either six or eight. His time with Mercedes saw a period of dominance never seen in the sport’s 74 year long history.

Mercedes collected a record eight consecutive constructor titles beating the previous record set by Schumacher and Ferrari at the turn of the century. The British driver holds a collection of records including his 105 Grand Prix wins which he topped up by two this year having endured the longest run in F1 without a win.

Hamilton’s glittering career sees him hold many of F1’s records of success being the only driver to win nine times at the same circuit and Grand Prix in Silverstone. He also holds the record for the number of pole positions (9) at the same venue in Budapest…. READ MORE