McLaren vs Lotus

Lore & Background

Founded by Bruce McLaren in 1963, the team made its Grand Prix debut at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix. After Bruce McLaren died in a testing accident in 1970, Teddy Mayer took over and led the team to their first Formula One Constructors' Championship in 1974. In 1981, McLaren merged with Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing; Dennis took over as team principal. This began the team's most successful era; with Porsche and Honda engines, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, and Ayrton Senna won seven Drivers' Championships between them and the team took six Constructors' Championships. The combination of Prost and Senna was particularly dominant – together they won all but one race in 1988. The team's most recent titles were secured in 2025.

In Their Own Story

The rain lashed down at Monaco, turning the harbor into a sheet of gray steel. Inside the cockpit, the smell of wet rubber and high-octane fuel was suffocating. Ahead, the Lotus 93T cut through the spray, its black and gold livery barely visible against the gloom. The McLaren M28 behind it hung on by a thread, the engine screaming in protest as the driver fought the wheel. One car was built to be light and slippery; the other to be strong and predictable. In that moment, history wasn't written in statistics, but in the trembling suspension arms and the desperate grip of tires on a track that refused to yield.

Reader's Guide

McLaren's Formula One history spans from 1966 to the present. The team won its first Grand Prix at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix. Emerson Fittipaldi, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen, Lewis Hamilton, and Lando Norris have won Drivers' Championships with McLaren. The team currently uses Mercedes power. Its partnership with Honda from 1988 to 1991 produced four consecutive Constructors' Championships; the team won 15 of 16 races in 1988. After a period in the midfield, McLaren surged to fourth in the Constructors' Championship in 2023, then won their ninth Constructors' Championship in 2024. The following year, Lando Norris took the team's most recent drivers' title and secured their tenth Constructors' Championship title and their second consecutive title; the first time this had happened since 1991.

Did You Know?

• McLaren is the second-oldest active Formula One team and the second-most successful after Ferrari.
• The team completed the Triple Crown of Motorsport (wins at the Indianapolis 500, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Monaco Grand Prix).
• The 2026 Chinese Grand Prix marked McLaren's 1000th Grand Prix entry, making them the second constructor after Ferrari to reach this milestone.
• McLaren introduced the first carbon fiber monocoque in F1 with the MP4/1 in 1981.