1. Bruce Leslie McLaren was a New Zealand racing driver, automotive designer, engineer and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from 1958 to 1970.
33 Facts About Bruce McLaren
1. 2.
In endurance racing, Bruce McLaren won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 with Ford.
3.
Bruce McLaren founded McLaren in 1963, who have since won nine World Constructors' Championship titles and remain the only team to have completed the Triple Crown of Motorsport.
4.
Aged 22, Bruce McLaren took his maiden win at the United States Grand Prix, becoming the then-youngest driver to win a Formula One Grand Prix, a record which stood for 44 years.
5.
Cooper struggled for performance from 1963 to 1965 as Lotus, BRM and Ferrari dominated the championship, prompting Bruce McLaren to enter Formula One with his own team.
6.
McLaren founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing in 1963, with whom he competed from 1966 until his death in 1970.
7.
Outside of Formula One, Bruce McLaren competed in nine editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1959 to 1969, winning in 1966 alongside Chris Amon in the Ford GT40 Mk II.
8.
Bruce McLaren was a two-time champion of the Canadian-American Challenge Cup in 1967 and 1969, driving his own M6A and M8B, and won the Tasman Series in 1964.
9.
Bruce McLaren's legacy has been cemented with the McLaren Group, whose achievements have included winning nine World Constructors' Championships, two Indianapolis 500s, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995.
10.
Bruce McLaren was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1991.
11.
Bruce McLaren spent all of his free hours hanging around the workshop and developed his passion during his formative years.
12.
In 1972,2 years after Bruce's death, his great-grandfather Ben McLaren celebrated his 100th birthday.
13.
Les McLaren restored an Austin 7 Ulster, which 14-year-old Bruce used in 1952 when he entered his first competition, a hillclimb at Muriwai, where he won the 750 cc class.
14.
Bruce McLaren moved up from the Austin to a Ford 10 special and an Austin-Healey, then a Formula Two Cooper-Climax sports racing car.
15.
Bruce McLaren was the first recipient, to be followed by others later including Denny Hulme.
16.
Bruce McLaren raced in F2 and was entered in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in which F2 and F1 cars competed together.
17.
Bruce McLaren astounded the motor racing fraternity by being the first F2, and fifth overall, in a field of the best drivers in the world.
18.
Bruce McLaren joined the Cooper factory F1 team alongside Jack Brabham in 1959 and won the 1959 United States Grand Prix at age 22 years 104 days, becoming the youngest ever GP winner up to that time.
19.
Bruce McLaren followed that with a win in the Argentine Grand Prix, the first race of the 1960 Formula One season, and he would finish runner-up that season to Brabham.
20.
Bruce McLaren won the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix, eventually finishing third in the championship that year.
21.
The next year, he founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, which remains in the Formula One championship simply as McLaren.
22.
Bruce McLaren continued to race and win in Coopers.
23.
Bruce McLaren left Cooper at the end of 1965, and announced his own GP racing team, with co-driver and fellow Kiwi Chris Amon.
24.
In 1968, Bruce McLaren was joined by another fellow Kiwi Denny Hulme, who had become world champion in 1967 with Brabham.
25.
Bruce McLaren took his fourth career win racing his own Bruce McLaren car at Spa in 1968, achieving the team's first Grand Prix win.
26.
The 1969 championship was a success, with Bruce McLaren finishing third in the standings despite taking no wins.
27.
In tribute to his homeland, Bruce McLaren's cars featured the "speedy Kiwi" logo.
28.
Just as the Can-Am began to become very popular with fans in Canada and the US, the new Bruce McLaren cars finished second twice, and third twice, in six races.
29.
Bruce McLaren was a competitive driver, but his legacy, the Bruce McLaren racing team, stems from his abilities as an analyst, engineer, and manager.
30.
Bruce McLaren died aged 32 when his Can-Am car crashed on the Lavant Straight just before Woodcote corner at Goodwood Circuit in England on 2 June 1970.
31.
Bruce McLaren had been testing his new McLaren M8D when the rear bodywork came adrift at speed.
32.
Motorsport author Eoin Young said that Bruce McLaren had "virtually penned his own epitaph" in his 1964 book From the Cockpit.
33.
Bruce McLaren was buried at Waikumete Cemetery in Glen Eden.