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History: McLaren were formed in 1963 by Bruce McLaren. When he
died in 1970 the team carried on and in 1974 Emerson Fittipaldi driving
for McLaren was world champion, followed by James Hunt in 1976.
In 1980 Ron Dennis took over the team with John Barnard as
designer. Success came in 1984 when Niki Lauda won the world championship.
In 1985
and then again in 1986 Alain Prost won the world championship for McLaren.
In 1988 McLaren now with a Honda engine won again with Ayrton Senna,
again they won the championship in 1989 with Alain Prost then followed
this with wins in 1990 and 1991 again with Ayton Senna.
In 1995 Mercedes move their
engines from Sauber to McLaren.
More recently McLaren
now with the Mercedes engine won the drivers and constructors championships in
1998 with Mika Hakkinen , in 1999 Hakkinen went on to win
the drivers championship with David Coulthard Finishing 4th.
In 2000
Hakkinen started the season with two mechanical failures and Coulthard one
mechanical failure and a disqualification, leaving Ferrari to gain an
early lead in the constructors and drivers championships. After round
seven Coulthard was second in the drivers championship ahead of team mate
Hakkinen, after round eleven they were equal on fifty four points each
with Michael Schumacher just ahead on fifty six points. Hakkinen then went
ahead of Schumacher in the drivers championship and looked set for his
third world drivers title, but a mechanical failure in round fifteen at
Indianapolis saw the end of his bid for the title as Schumacher went on to
win the race and also won the last two rounds at Japan and Malaysia.
Hakkinen
finished second in the drivers championship and Coulthard finished third,
McLaren finished second in the constructors championship behind long time
rivals Ferrari.
In
2001
McLaren's drivers remained the same with Mika Hakkinen aiming for his
third world title and David Coulthard aiming for his first, Alexander
Wurz joins the team from Benetton as test driver. The season ended
with Coulthard finishing second in the drivers championship and
Hakkinen finishing fifth, Hakkinen decided to give Formula 1 a
break for a few years leaving the way open for Kimi
Raikkonen to join the team. Coulthard is now seen as the number
one McLaren driver, could this be the year for him to
claim his first Formula 1 world drivers championship?
2002 was a
disappointing year for McLaren, with the pairing of David
Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen the team lost further ground to
Ferrari but were also over taken in both championships by BMW
Williams. Coulthard finished 5th in the drivers
championship and Raikkonen finished 6th, the team finished 3rd
in the constructors.
This year the
team has the same driver line up and most of the other team
members remains the same, Ferrari are miles ahead of McLaren so
their first goal must to be to regain their second place in the
constructors championship.
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