Vital Statistics:

• Founded: 1966
• Based: Woking, England
• World Constructors' Titles: 8
• World Drivers' Titles: 12
• Grand Prix Victories: 162
• Pole Positions: 175

Bruce McLaren:

Bruce McLaren raced cars from his teenage years onwards. His father owned a garage, and he studied engineering. He began racing in Formula 1 in 1958, and won the U.S. Grand Prix in 1959. The following year when he won the Argentine Grand Prix, the first race of the season, he set the record of being the youngest driver to lead the championship, at the age of 22.

That record held until 2007 when Lewis Hamilton, driving a McLaren, beat the record by more than a month. McLaren founded the McLaren team in 1966, eventually winning the Belgian Grand Prix in his McLaren car in 1968. He died in a crash in June 1970.

Ron Dennis:

Ron Dennis started in Formula 1 as a teenager as mechanic at the Cooper team in 1966. In 1972 he founded his own team, and throughout the 1970s he concentrated on F2, where he set standards for an approach to racing that still holds today: Cleanliness and orderliness in the traditionally messy garage and paddock. In 1980 his team merged with McLaren, and he eventually became an owner. Applying his methods to the team in F1, he lifted it to the top in the mid to late 1980s, when it became famous for its battles between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. In 1988 the two drivers won every race except one.

A Brief History:

From its small beginnings in the 1960s as Bruce McLaren's team, the outfit has moved on through several decades to establish itself not only as the second most successful team in the sport, but also a manufacturer of sports cars for the road.

McLaren has also won races and titles in several other series, including the Indianapolis 500, CanAm and Le Mans. McLaren won races in each decade of its existence. But the team's greatest period in F1 was the years under Ron Dennis's direction in the 1980s and 1990s. Finally, however, in 2008 the team once again won the drivers' title, with Lewis Hamilton driving.

More Recent Times:

McLaren fell on a few hard years in the late 1970s, but Ron Dennis rebuilt the team in the 1980s, turning it into the second most successful team in the sport. After the Senna/Prost era, the team again fell on difficult years in the early 1990s, when it lost the Honda engine and then the Peugeot engine. In a clever move, Ron Dennis created a partnership with the Mercedes car manufacturer as engine provider - and later as part owner of the team - and the team again had the resources to reach the highest level. With Mika Hakkinen driving, McLaren won both world titles in 1998, and the drivers' title in 1999.

The Mercedes Connection:

Afer a huge accident involving a Mercedes car at the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 1955 in which more than 80 spectators were killed, the German car manufacturer withdrew from international motor racing for nearly 40 years. It returned to F1 in the early 1990s at the small Sauber team. But with growing ambitions, it joined McLaren in 1995. By 1997 it was winning races and by 1998 it won the constructors' championship. The company increased its commitment to the sport when in 2000 Mercedes's parent company, DaimlerChrysler, bought 40 percent of McLaren. Mercedes finally divested its ownership in the team in 2010 and 2011 and bought the successful Brawn team, renaming it Mercedes. It remained with McLaren as an engine provider.

The Future:

After several years of struggle against Ferrari, McLaren Mercedes began the 2007 season strongly and along with Ferrari, was the championship favorite. Its two new young drivers, Alonso, a double world champion, and Hamilton, a rookie that the team had been grooming for a decade, were the strongest pair in the sport. These two drivers and the team's desire to go the final step it needed and had missed twice in recent years to win the title, promised a bright future for McLaren. But halfway through the season the team was involved in a so-called spy scandal with Ferrari. It failed to win the title by one point. Alonso left the team after just one season. In 2010, Jenson Button joined the team as world champion, and he and Hamilton faced off in a power struggle between British champions.

The McLaren-Ferrari Spy Scandal:

The McLaren chief designer, Mike Coughlan, was accused of having in his possession 780 pages of Ferrari data, which he had received from Nigel Stepney, a former chief mechanic at the Ferrari team. McLaren was called before the World Motor Sport Council in July and then again in September of 2007, when it was charged with possession of the Ferrari data and disqualified from the championship. The team was also fined $100 million, which was the largest fine in sporting history. It was never proven, however, how much if any advantage the McLaren team could have obtained from the data.

McLaren Mercedes Returns To Full Force:

In 2008 McLaren Mercedes put the spy scandal behind itself. In fact, it might even be said that the team drew strength from the fiasco and returned to challenge for the title until the last race of the season. Lewis Hamilton won the title at the Brazilian Grand Prix in the final lap of the final race. It was the team's first title in a decade. Had it not been for teething problems for Heikki Kovalainen, the new driver, and a few other bits of bad luck, the team would likely have won the constructors' title as well. But Ferrari was more consistent and won that less important title.