McLaren vs Lotus

Lore & Background

McLaren is best known as a Formula One chassis constructor, the second-oldest active team and the second-most successful Formula One team after Ferrari, having won races, 13 Drivers' Championships, and 10 Constructors' Championships. McLaren is one of only three constructors, and the only team, to complete the Triple Crown of Motorsport (wins at the Indianapolis 500, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Monaco Grand Prix). The team currently uses Mercedes power.

Its partnership with Honda from to produced four consecutive Constructors' Championships; the team won 15 of 16 races in 1988. Founded by Bruce McLaren in 1963, the team made its Grand Prix debut at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, won its first Grand Prix at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix, and took its first Formula One championships in . 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's most recent titles were secured in . McLaren also has a history in sports car and endurance racing, with a modified McLaren F1 road car winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995. The team is set to reenter the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2027 with an LMDh entry, the McLaren MCL-HY. The team has also had experience in American open wheel racing as both an entrant and a chassis constructor, and has won the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) sports car racing championship.

Their current IndyCar entry, Arrow McLaren, has won 10 races since its takeover of Sam Schmidt Motorsports in 2020. McLaren has previously entered the electric motorsports Formula E and Extreme E, though they achieved less success there than their other ventures and ended up pulling out of both. McLaren also participates in Formula One esports, in which they won the 2022 championship.

Reader's Guide

The team began life as a Formula One constructor in 1963 by Bruce McLaren. The team's maiden Grand Prix victory was at the 1968 Belgian 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 , with Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt winning the Drivers' Championship in 1974 and respectively. The year 1974 also marked the start of a long-standing sponsorship by the Marlboro cigarette brand.

In 1981, McLaren merged with Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing; Dennis took over as team principal, and shortly afterwards organised a buyout of the original McLaren shareholders to take full control of the team. 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 – but later their rivalry soured and Prost left for Ferrari.

Fellow English team Williams offered the most consistent challenge during this period, the two winning every constructors' title between and . By the mid-1990s, Honda had withdrawn from Formula One, Senna had moved to Williams, and the team went three seasons without a win. With Mercedes-Benz engines, West sponsorship, and former Williams designer Adrian Newey, further championships came in and with driver Mika Häkkinen, and during the 2000s the team were consistent front-runners, with Lewis Hamilton winning the drivers' title.

Ron Dennis retired as McLaren team principal in 2009, handing over to long-time McLaren employee Martin Whitmarsh. At the end of 2013, after the team's worst season since 2004, Whitmarsh was ousted. McLaren announced in 2013 that they would be using Honda engines from 2015 onwards, replacing Mercedes-Benz. The team raced as McLaren Honda for the first time since 1992 at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix.

The second Honda partnership did not yield good results, and in September 2017, McLaren announced they had agreed on an engine supply with Renault from 2018 to 2020. McLaren returned to using Mercedes-Benz engines from the 2021 season, with a deal in place until at least 2030.

Did You Know?

• McLaren's first Formula One car, the M2B, was painted white with a green stripe to represent a fictional team in the film Grand Prix.
• The team's original logo featured a kiwi bird, a New Zealand icon.