The Athletic Hello and welcome to Anne Colossally. That's History, the podcast that re-apraises motor racing history. I'm Richard Williams And I'm Matt Bishop and we're back with season 4 of the podcast. And if I sound excited, that's because I am. Because we've got 10 more exciting episodes and countless more anorak facts coming your way over the next few weeks. And we're kicking off season 4 with a rather topical topic. If the expression topical topic isn't unacceptably taught logical, to a linguistic perfectionist such as your good self-riching. Well, it's very early and we haven't really kicked off yet. So I'll let you off that one with a warning. Thank you. Thank you. But you're right Matt, because at the time of the recording the world of Formula One is being dominated by your old team McLaren. Well, it was until Max Verstappen suddenly found some more speed in the Red Bull and started winning races again at Monzer and in Baku. He's quite good at finding speed that boy is the step one, isn't he? He is. But at this moment in what is it early October and with several races still to go, McLaren is still odds on to win the 2025 Constructors World title, their second in a row. And one of their drivers, either Oscar Piaestry or Lando Norris, will almost certainly be crowned the team's first world champion since 2008. It's been an astonishing climb back to the top for McLaren, who, as you all know, doubt painfully remember Matt were not long ago languishing at the back of the grid and looking in desperate trouble. But then again, recovering from setbacks is very much in the McLaren DNA as we'll explore today. Don't remind me Richard, how was there in the McLaren Honda doldrums of 2015, 2016 and 2017. Anyway, enough of that. In this episode, the first in season four, we're traveling quite a long way farther back in time than that because we're going to tell the story of the man who founded the team and gave it its name. That's right, Bruce McLaren. Some of our listeners, perhaps younger listeners may not know too much about him, but Bruce was by any definition a remarkable person. And his story, and indeed the story of McLaren, the racing team, is an astonishing tale of grit, determination and human endeavor. Yeah, it's the story of a man who was described by one formula, one driver, as quote, the greatest leader of men I've ever met. Who was that? Houdn Ghandley. Houdn Ghandley. I think I'm going to tell you a little Houdn Ghandley story later on, but carry on, sorry to interrupt. Anyway, the story began on the 30th of August, 1937, when Bruce Leslie McLaren was born in Auckland, New Zealand. As a schoolboy, he showed promises a rugby player and had the early ambition, which not exactly unusual among Kiwis, of playing for the all blacks. But his progress was thwarted very early at the age of nine, in fact, when a persistent pain in his left hip led to a diagnosis of something called Perth's disease, which happens when the ball and socket joint in the hip loses its lubrication. He was never quite sure what caused it, although he thought it might have been a fall from a horse on his uncle's farm, or a crash in a homemade soapbox cart going down a hill near his own home. Today's medical advice would be to let the condition heal itself. Back in the mid-1940s, though, the upshot was that he spent nearly three years in something rather forbiddingly called the Wilson home for crippled children, having his legs put in plaster and lying in traction in a frame for months on end. In his autobiography From the Cockpit, which was published when he was only 26, he wrote very amusingly about he and the other boys suffering from the same complaint. We're given four-wheeled bath chairs in which to move around while still attached to their frames. Naturally, they began to race each other around the hospital grounds, leading to one or mighty pileup, to about finding the humor in a desperate situation, eh, Matt? Humor, yes, but also courage. And as I hope we'll be able to convey over the next hour or so, Bruce was indefatically courageous, plucky, intrepid even, albeit in a quiet and unassuming way. And those qualities were central to his mission, if I can call it that, which was to make it in international motor racing. But that mission, that dream, was in many ways more of a pipe dream than a dream back then. I mean, put it this way, Bruce's fellow patients at the Wilson home for crippled children, and indeed the doctors and nurses who tended him there, would have thought you were stuck staring mad if you told them that one of the disabled kids in their midst would end up being a famous Formula One driver. Exactly, especially as when the treatment was finished, the 12-year-old Bruce was released with his left leg, an inch and a half shorter than his right leg, which left him with a permanent limp. But all was not lost for his career in sport. It just wouldn't be in rugby. His dad ran a garage in a service station, and he and his two brothers raced motorcycles before the Second World War, and then graduated to cars in peacetime. So young Bruce grew up around the sound of race-tuned engines, and he was learning from the ground up how the cars worked and how to make them faster. In his dad's case, the cars were all pre-war. There was an SS-1, the precursor of the Jaguar, and then a singer Le Mans, and then a derelict 750cc Austin 7 Ulster, for which Leslie McLaren paid 100 quid with the idea of stripping it down and rebuilding it for racing. But when he got it done, he discovered that it wouldn't stop very well or go round corners. So he did the only thing a conscientious dad would do. He passed it on to his 14-year-old son. How kind? And thus Bruce McLaren acquired his first racing car, which he immediately started working on. They had a big back garden, and the nearest neighbor was half a mile away, so he could mark out a little circuit. He said it was a bit like the original brand's hatch circuit. Oh really, indie circuit, just a kind of kidney shape. Yeah. And there he could test the car to his heart's content, eradicating its many faults while also practicing his cornering technique. And once he turned 15 and passed his driving test, Bruce entered the car in his first competition. A hill climb up an unmade road close to his family's summer house on Murriwe Beach. For the next three years, he raced the Ulster, modifying it as he went along, helped by his engineering studies eventually at Auckland University, which had a technical college handily close to the location of the annual New Zealand Grand Prix, the Ardmore Airfield circuit. He was also making useful friends among his rivals in the close-knit Kiwi racing scene, where the lack of modern machinery and spares meant that improvisation and cooperation were important themes. It's not surprising that in the years to come, when he got to Europe and eventually started hiring his own engineers and mechanics, that many of them were people he'd known in New Zealand, who had the practical skills and the collaborative approach that he valued. So Matt, how did he go about building on his early amateur successes and acquiring a national reputation? Well, before I answer that, I think it's worth pointing out that Bruce's Austin 7 Ulster, the little racing car you've just been talking about, sits now in pride of place on the boulevard, which is what Ron Dennis insisted we McLaren staffers, as I was then, or for one time, call the McLaren Technology Centre's large airy ground floor atrium in woking. And there it sits among the glorious Formula One World Championship winning cars of Emerson Filippoldi, James Hunt, Nikki Lauder, Alan Prost, Atten Center, Mick Ahakinen and of course Lewis Hamilton. And rightly so, in my opinion. Yeah, indeed, I've seen it there and one would have to say it's now in Ron Dennis condition rather than Leslie McLaren condition. And one of the things you could certainly say on Ron's behalf was that he had a strong appreciation of McLaren's history and of Bruce's significance. Am I right? I think so. We'll talk a little bit about Ron in the context of Bruce later, but yes, I think he was aware that McLaren meant something. I mean, he didn't let it be called, you know, woking racing. Did he nor did he change it to Dennis Formula One? Yeah. No, he realised that there was something in the brand. He'd probably talk about brand rather than history. But in many ways, it means the same thing. Anyway, after Bruce had moved on from his Austin 7 Ulster, his racing career began to gather serious momentum in the burgeoning motorsport scene of early 1950s New Zealand. He quickly transitioned to slightly more competitive and sophisticated machines.
machinery slightly more, including a Ford X special built by his father. And as you've already said Richard, the teenage Bruce showed an uncanny ability not only to drive but also to engineer his cars, often improving their performance quite markedly in so doing. Anyway in addition, his early drives in local hill climbs as you've said and club races were marked by, well, consistency and technical precision. Traits that would define his later racing career I think we can say. And before long he was a regular on the national circuit attracting attention with his unspectacular proficiency behind the wheel and his calm, methodical approach. That sounds a bit like damning with faint praise. Well I didn't mean it to be that. I suppose we'll come to an appraisal of his out and out speed later and I suppose I'm hinting that there have been faster racing drivers in the history of our sport. But I'm praising him too and rightly so. Anyway, his breakthrough came with some good performances in, as I say, more sophisticated cars yet, particularly Cooper's. In 1957 for example, age 19 he entered some of the New Zealand Grand Prix support races at Ardmore as you've mentioned, competing on the same bill as some of the top local and visiting international drivers who were racing in the feature race, the New Zealand Grand Prix. Anyway, despite Bruce's youth and relative inexperience, he impressed everyone with his solid mature driving and his surprisingly sophisticated mechanical feedback for one so young. And the consistent results that he began to pile up began to attract the interest of influential figures in motorsport down under in New Zealand and Australia, most notably Jack Brabham, who would later play an absolutely crucial role in Bruce's transition to the international stage. But we'll come to that later. By the late 1950s, Bruce had firmly established himself as one of New Zealand's most promising young drivers. But his ever more impressive successes in the New Zealand Championship series, including strong showings in races such as, oh, the Lady Wiggroom trophy and the Dunedin road race, positioned him as more than just a local talent actually. And such early achievements laid the foundations for his eventual selection for the "driver to Europe" scheme, which would launch his international career and set him on the path to becoming a motorsport legend. Would it not Richard? It would. And it's worth remembering at this point that if New Zealand seems quite a long way away today, it seemed a lot further away in the 1950s. It was a minimum four week journey by sea. So as you say, the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association organized an annual scholarship to send a young driver on the 12,000 mile journey to Europe to the heart of motorsport, with introductions to leading teams and a grant to cover a season's living expense. I mean, quite a serious prize. Oh, yeah, very, very serious. And you can imagine what a thrill it must have been to. Amazing. As Bruce did through a dogged performance in the New Zealand Grand Prix at Ardmore, at the start of 1958, and that was the feature race this time, not the support races that he'd been in the year before. He was driving one of two single-seater rear-engine Cooper climaxes, brought from England by Jack Brabham, who'd left his native Australia in 1955 and become a significant figure at the Cooper team in England, as an engineer and driver. The Cooper's gearbox actually broke while Bruce was warming it up before the Grand Prix, but Brabham happened to have a spare, and while the mechanics fitted it, the organizers held up the start until the young local hero was ready to make it onto the track at the back of the grid. He actually started half a lap behind, before getting himself up from last to eighth. At that point, more mechanical problems put him out, but he'd made the necessary impression. So when he landed in England after that long sea voyage, he followed in Brabham's footprints to the little Cooper garage in Serberton, a suburb southwest of London. He was quickly accepted, probably on Brabham's recommendation, and as was the way at Cooper, he started building up his own Formula 2 car himself. And it wasn't long before he was winning a race at Brands Hatch, in a battle with a similar F2 Cooper driven by Kent Tural, another man who would one day have his name on a Grand Prix team. And a sociate Kent Tural with anything inside the cockpit, but of course he did do that. Earlier he raced in F3 in the Cooper Jams, and all that kind of thing. But of course he was a great talent spotter, and he responded by giving Bruce a drive in his Formula 2 team for 1959. And he said a very interesting thing, quote, "I thought Bruce would become World Champion because he had the ability to think about it. He wasn't going to be the world's quickest driver, but then the world's quickest driver isn't always World Champion." That's a fascinating observation, isn't it? And so true. Indeed it is. Anyway, in 1958, Bruce's first year in Europe, he entered his own F2 Cooper for the German Grand Prix at the classic 14-mile Nürburgring Nordschleifer circuit. In those days, F2 cars were sometimes allowed to race alongside the F1 entries in World Championship Grand Prix, usually in order to make up the field. Especially at the Nürburgring actually, because the 14-mile lap allowed plenty of space for extra cars without compromised safety. Yes indeed. And it could favor nimble cars, well driven ones, of course, over the more powerful ones. Anyway, you mean the Nordschleifer circuit? Yes, yes, yes. Anyway, Bruce qualified the little one-and-a-half-liter car, 15th of 25 starters, and amazingly he was up to 5th as they went through the first corner. And that's where he finished the race. Behind the winning van war of Tony Brooks, the F1 Cooper's of Roy Salvadorian Maurice Trantignan, and the Ferrari of Valkyrie-Bon-Trips, but ahead of all the other F2 entries, including Phil Hill's Ferrari. In an era when most Grand Prix drivers were mature men, he was still just 20 years old. Yeah, impressive. And Bruce's fifth place at the Nordschleifer impressed everyone at Cooper, or Cooper's, to quote the plural, "opposessive nomenclature" that racing men always used to use back then, just as soon they would say "brabams and McLaren's" instead of "brabam and McLaren" as we do nowadays. But the result that Bruce was invited to race that same Formula 2 Cooper again that year, in the last Grand Prix of the season at AINDAB near Casablanca in Morocco. By the way, before I talk about that, would you say it's plural or possessive? McLaren's, possessive. Cooper's McLaren's, yeah. So apostrophe S. In case I ever have to write it, which I probably will. Yeah, yeah. Okay. We called Ferrari Ferraris though. Or lotuses. Not sure if all of the lotuses are much debated. We digress. Anyway, we're talking, aren't we, about AINDAB 1958. Again, Bruce acquitted himself well, well enough indeed that he was invited to become a member of Cooper's Pucker, F1 Formula 1 driver line-up, the following year, 1959, alongside Jack Brabham and Mastern Gregory. The boy with a limp from Auckland had well and truly arrived, hadn't he? Yeah. Anyway, the 1959 Formula 1 season started off with a series of non-championship Formula 1 races, as Formula 1 seasons almost always did back then, not always, but almost always. And Bruce acquitted himself well straight away, finishing sixth in the Glover trophy at Goodwood, and third in the BARC200 at AINTRI, then retiring with Gearbox failure, not his fault in the international trophy at Silverstone. I think we said it once or twice before about non-championship races at the start of the season. What a good thing they were. Lovely. And then they were sort of exciting to have a kind of, it was like an hors d'oeuvre to match up the type of race. What did your appetite? It did. And it gave him a chance to test their, he was testing under racing conditions. And for us Brits, I mean, when I was a kid in the, in the 70s, you know, you went to the British Grand Prix, but you also went to the race of champions at Brands and the international trophy at Silverstone. And you probably went, I didn't, it was too far up north, but you probably went to the gold cup at Aldham Park. I do, actually, but I should have done. You should have done. Anyway, where were we? Yes. When, let's go into the World Championship proper, when we're talking about 59 now, 1959, when the World Championship proper kicked off at Monaco, first race of the year, World Championship race of the year, Bruce did well again, finishing fifth, Abley supporting Jack Brabham in the lead Cooper, who won, Jack won. Anyway, Bruce skipped Zanvort, which was the next race, but he was back for Reams, where he was fifth again, then two weeks later at Aintry, he bagged his first ever World Championship Status Formula One podium third behind his Cooper team leader, Jack Brabham, who won again and sterling moss in a BRM.
and actually with whom with Sterling Bruce Shared fastest lap thereby becoming the youngest driver to set a fastest lap in a world championship status Formula 1 Grand Prix. At the age of, you know what's coming don't you? At the age of 21 years and 321 days and that I believe is our first anorac fact of series 4. And there'll be more. Anyway, after entry Bruce retired with mechanical problems in the next three rounds of the championship series but then came one of the most remarkable days in the history of Grand Prix racing in the 1950s. A day that ended with him on the top step of the podium. Well had there been podiums in those days which there weren't. Metaphorically he had the winners laurel re-thrown. So going into that final round of the series which was the very first United States Grand Prix held on the air field at Sea Bring in Florida. Three drivers were in with a chance of the title. One was Jack Brabham, Bruce's teammate. The second was Sterling Moss also in a Cooper entered by his power rob Walker the Scotch whiskey air. The third was Tony Brooks in a front engine works for Ari. Motorsports Dennis Jenkinson whom we quote from time to time on this podcast we do indeed didn't think much of Sea Bring. Parts of the circuit he said quote resembled a driving test layout at a small British club meeting unquote. Featuous and notoriously bumpy it nevertheless provided the setting for a dramatic climax to the season typical Janks really. Yeah yeah driving tests. Bruce McLaren could only qualify 10th but by the end of the first lap he was already third behind Moss and Brabham. Brooks had been shunted up the rear at the start by Von Tripp's his own teammate and he kept to promise to his wife very honorably to come into the pits to have the car checked over the possible damage. There wasn't any as it happened but the longish stop damaged his chances of taking enough points to win the title in the process infuriating Enzo Ferrari. It was of course back at the factory in Maranello seething over the Englishman's caution. I can imagine you can. Brooks never regretted it though he said if he hadn't made that precautionary stop he almost certainly would have been World Champion he said he didn't regret it. I wonder if he was being economical with the truth he'd kept to promise to his lovely wife beer. Anyway Moss's gearbox packed up after five laps which seemed to leave the way clear for Brabham to take the race and the championship with the faithful McLaren close behind him. But with only a mile to go Brabham's petrol tank ran dry. Blackjack was a tough nut so he got out and pushed the car to the finish line. You could do that in those days. Just imagine one of today's drivers trying to do the same thing. Landon Norris pushing a McLaren a mile to be great telling. Drive and survive. Do it. I mean that's a thing. Drive and survive would love it. I mean in those days you could stand next to the car lean into the cockpit you know hold the steering wheel and steer it and push at the same time. Literally there twice the size. From one car today. The reward for Brabham's effort was fourth place which gave him enough points to secure his first world title. Meanwhile while he was pushing the thing McLaren went past grabbing his stroke of luck and becoming at 22 years and 104 days. The youngest driver to winner championship status Grand Prix. Along with his Garland he also got a smacking full on kiss from miss Sebring Grand Prix. I've seen the pictures of that. It was a proper kiss. It was. Anyway you've just provided anorect facts number two. Which not the kiss. But the 22 years and 104 days. I suppose the kiss is almost anorect fact three. We'll see. Anyway we're not keeping italy otherwise we lose count. But anyway back to our story. Bruce's record which you've just highlighted 22 years and 104 days. The youngest driver to win a championship status Grand Prix. It would stand for more than four decades until it was finally broken in the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix by Fernando Alonso. Who was 22 years and 26 days old when he won that race for a no. Another anorect fact. Yeah genuine one that. It is. It is. And I was there for that one in Hungary in 2003 but I hadn't yet been born when Bruce won at Sebring in 1959. Sorry to point this out but you had been Richard hadn't you. You had been born but I doubt that at 12 years old your parents paid for you to win. And you had been paid for you to fly to Florida to witness the great event. No they didn't regrettably and I was 12 years old and I was completely gripped by the battle for the title. Not least because Moss my hero was involved. And there was actually a three month gap if you can believe this between the penaltyment race of the season at Monza and the showdown at Sebring. It certainly allowed the tension to build and you know the enormous amount of discussion because there were many permutations over whether Brabham or Moss or British. How did they manage the Instagram buildup Richard? Telegram rather than Instagram. Anyway I have to confess that the outcome of the race was a bitter disappointment to me. Although by that time even a besotted 12 year old could see that it was unlikely that Sterling was ever going to be crowned world champion. Sad but true. Anyway we're up to 1960 now and again Bruce started the Formula One season well. The first and Gregory was no longer a part of the Cooper team. It was just Jack and Bruce in those compact and wieldy rear engine cars now. Anyway the season kicked off in Buenos Aires with the Argentine Grand Prix obviously. The first round of the Formula One World Championship. And guess what? Bruce won again which meant that he'd now won two Grand Prix on the trot or be it one at the end of one season and the other at the beginning of the other. Becoming in the process the youngest ever World Championship leader. Bruce followed that up with second place at Monaco driving fastest lap again and he added further podium finishes at Spa, Reams, Boa Vista in Portugal and Riverside in the United States of America. It was a great year for Jack and Bruce for they finished first and second respectively in that year's Formula One World Championship. And of course therefore Cooper won the Constructors Crown. But that really would be as good as it got for Cooper. And that was something Brabham recognised when he left the team at the end of a hugely disappointing 1961 season in which they and all the other British teams had been roundly thrashed by Ferrari. The Sharknose. The Sharknose, the beautiful little Sharknose which was well prepared for a new Formula that actually won an athlete Formula and the Brits weren't. Brabham, now a double world champion, saw that Charles Cooper, the head of the family, was reluctant to make the sort of financial investment that would make them really competitive again. So Blackjack went off to start his own team. Eventually becoming in 1966 the only man ever to win the F1 driver's title in a car carrying his own name. Bruce thus became Cooper's team leader which seemed a natural progression. He'd also got married during the winter to Pat Broad who he'd met at a dance in New Zealand in 1958. And that put an end to his bachelor life where he'd been sharing a bed sitter in servant with Phil Carr, a friend from Auckland who was managing Brabham's new garage in Chessington. - And got go on with him until the car ran later. - He would indeed. Now Bruce was using his knowledge to take a role in designing the Cooper's alongside John Cooper and the actual chief designer Owen Maddock. It paid off as early as the second race of the season at Monaco where he qualified third in the new Cooper T60 with its V8 climax engine. He led the first lap, was passed by Graham Hills BRM and took the win when Hills engine failed with eight laps to go. So once again he was in the right place to profit from the misfortunes of others. And there were enough podium finishes as we didn't call them then in the rest of the season to give him third place in the final championship standings behind Graham, Hill and Jim Clark. Matt, how talented a driver do you think he was? Well it's a good question. We've been skirting around it for a little while but it's one that if you don't mind I think perhaps we should answer fully in a little while once we've told a little bit more of his story. Fair enough. And with Bruce McLaren poised at the end of 1963 to emulate his mentor Jack Brabham and leave Cooper to start his own team. That's a good point at which to take our first short ad break. [Music] Welcome back. In part one we spoke about Bruce McLaren working his way up to F1 and becoming a Grand Prix winner. But that in itself wasn't enough for Bruce, was it Matt? He had bigger ambitions. Indeed he did. And you know I think, well I suppose.
that he saw what his mentor, Jack Brabham, a man who'd also voyage to Europe from down under, Australia in Jack's case and New Zealand in Bruce's, had done. He'd seen what Jack had done, and that was to set up a race team of his own in England. Jack and his fellow Aussie business partner Ron Torrenac had founded Brabham, Brabams in Chessington, Surrey, just south of London. Although initially by the way, they'd called their team MRD short for motor racing developments. And so in 1963, Bruce and a group of fellow Kiwis, well, mostly Kiwis, not only Kiwis, founded Bruce McLaren motor racing based in Felpham. You call it Felphamaltum. Felpham. Felpham. Felpham, Middlesex, just west of London. The team's initial focus was on building sports cars for the North American Sports Car Championship, later much more famous as Cannes. And their first car, McLaren M1A, made its debut in 1964. The M1A was a pretty, very pretty, I think, compact, lightweight machine, constructed around a tubular space frame chassis and a powerful American V8 engine, quickly attracting attention for its strong performance and its robust design. Altogether, 24 M1As were built, some powered by Oldsmobile V8, some by Chevy V8s and some by Ford V8s. The M1A's success led to production orders too, including a deal with Elva cars to build customer versions under the name McLaren Elva. That program helped finance Bruce's fledgling racing operation and raise its profile internationally. Yeah, some listeners might not know that Elva was a pretty prominent racing car manufacturer in Britain in the 50s and early 60s. Yeah. A bit like Lola were. You know, they were, whereas Lotus and Cooper prospered and lasted a long time, Elva and to some extent Lola went on quite a long time, but Elva made Indicars. Lola, but Elva probably largely forgotten. Yeah. Anyway, back in single-seaters, Bruce then won the 1964 Tasman series in a Cooper T70 modified by Bruce McLaren motor racing, as it was, specifically for the unique demands of that series, which was held in Australia and New Zealand during the European winter. McLaren's Cooper was essentially a hybrid, based as it was on a current F1 chassis, but equipped with a 2.5-liter engine allowed under the Tasman rules. Bruce chose a modified 2.5-liter Coventry Climax engine, pairing reliability with the nimble handling of the Cooper chassis. And with that setup, he won three out of the eight races, beating his old mentor and now rival Jack Brabham, who also won three times, beat him into second place in the final point standings. Yeah, I guess you could say that the 1964 Tasman series campaign therefore marked the establishment of Bruce McLaren motor racing as a genuine force in international motorsport. As you say, Richard, Bruce won three races in that series that year, the New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekoe, the Lady Wiggroom Trophy, obviously at Wiggroom. Who was Lady Wiggroom? I mean, I've read about that race many times. No, I do. I've never thought to ask. If we read in series 12, if we've run out of material, we'll do a whole part. Lady Wiggroom. Sorry. Anyway, the Lady Wiggroom Trophy, which I've read about many times without ever having wondered who she was, at Wiggroom. Well, she must have had something to do with Wiggroom and the Territonga International. Guess where that was? That was at Territonga. Did you know that? Very good. Very good. Anyway, Bruce's ability to lead and run a team while remaining at the front of the field as a driver was a remarkable demonstration of his versatility and ambition. I mean, because don't forget, he was still only 27 years old. Anyway, not everything went well in 1964 for Bruce and his band of usually Mary Men 4, tragically, that year's Tasman series was marred by the death of 26-year-old Timmy Mayer, Maccharen's American teammate and close friend. Mayer, the younger brother of Teddy Mayer, who'd been one of the small group of mates who'd co-founded Bruce's new racing car company with him the year before one of the ones who wasn't a Kiwi, because he was American, the Mayers were American. Anyway, Timmy was killed during practice at Longford in Tasmania when his car corined off the road at high speed and struck a tree. The accident shook the little Maccharen team to its core, casting a long shadow over what had otherwise been a brilliantly successful campaign. Actually, Bruce was deeply affected by the loss, you know, not only a death but a death of a teammate and close friend, later reflecting that Mayer had had in his opinion the potential to become a Formula One World Champion. And here's a sad but sobering thing. After his young friend's death, Bruce penned the following words, Bruce always a wordsmith, by the way, Bruce penned the following words in from the cockpit, the book we've talked about, his excellent 1964 autobiography that you mentioned before Richard, words that would become synonymous with him and I mean synonymous with Bruce, not so much synonymous with Timmy, although they were written about Timmy. Quote, "The news that he had died instantly was a terrible shock to all of us. But who is to say that he had not seen more, done more, and learned more in his few years than many people do in a lifetime? To do something well is so worthwhile that today trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability. For I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone." Such a good bit of pros without knowing it, Bruce had written his own epitaph. Yes, that's very very poignant indeed. Anyway, they recovered from that loss and in 1965 the team followed the Cannam M1A with the M1B more refined and more competitive featuring revised suspension and better aerodynamics. And meanwhile, let's not forget, Bruce was still racing in F1 with Cooper, but his ambition was clearly now to establish Bruce McLaren motor racing as a big time constructor in its own right as Brabham had done, not only in sports cars, but also in single-seaters. Can you imagine Oscar Piaestry racing from McLaren in Formula One and setting up Piaestry motor racing at the same time and entering Formula 3 and Formula 2 races? Yeah, and Bruce wasn't very much older than Piaestry. Similar. The groundwork for that broader expansion was already being laid with the design and testing of an F1 chassis already secretly underway. Bruce also had another young Kiwi, the very talented Chris Aiman to drive alongside him. That's right. And by late 1965, the team had outgrown its cramped Felton base, so Bruce moved it to a new and more spacious facility, still not big-by-da-day standards, in Conbrook about five miles northwest of what was then called London Airport, aka Heathrow, of course. The move marked an important step in McLaren's development, allowing, well, for better logistics, expanded workshop capacity, and the infrastructure necessary to support a full-scale racing operation. With the Conbrook base in place, the team accelerated development of their first Formula One car, the M2A and its successor, the M2B, which would make its debut in 1966. Yeah, by this time, a young Englishman called Robin Heard, a joint Bruce's design team, and it was he who drew up the first McLaren F1 cars. Heard had a double-first from Oxford in physics and engineering, and he'd been working at the Royal Aircraft Establishment on the design of the Concorde. Clever Bloke, Robin Heard. Very clever bloke. His first McLaren was a monococ, made of something called malite, which was basically a sandwich of thin aluminium sheets and bolster wood riveted and glued together, providing something very light, but also a lot stronger and stiffer than it might sound. And when the car made its first appearance at Monaco in 1966, it was immediately a parent that it's a Kiles heel, was nothing to do with the chassis, but it was the engine. A 4-cam Ford V8 built by McLaren originally intended for the Indy 500, but now reduced to three litres for grown pre-racing. It just wasn't good enough, and it was quickly swapped for a replacement. Another V8 built by the Scuderia Serenisima in Italy, but that was equally duff, and after three races, they went back to the Ford to complete a pretty unhappy season. Such a pity because Serenisima is a fantastic name, isn't it? It's
such a beautiful idea. They should have done better, based in Venice. Oh fantastic places. Anyway, there we are. 1967 wasn't actually much better because herde designed the new M4B around BRM's V12 engine, which wasn't delivered until late in the season. Typical BRM, you might say, if your memory goes back as far as the early 1950s, when they could never get a car to the grid on time. So while Bruce waited for the V12 to turn up, he actually took a guest seat in one of Dan Gernie's Eagles for the French, British, and German Grand Prix's unhappily retiring from all of them. So that was the end of another season in which nobody had any real idea of whether Bruce McLaren motor racing was actually capable of building a competitive Formula One car. But there were successes outside Formula One. One of them was Bruce's involvement in the story of the Ford GT40, which led to one of his greatest triumphs as a driver. In 1964, because first year at the 24 hours of Le Mans, he and Phil Hill made it from 44th and last place to 4th before their gearbox packed up. A year later, he and Ken Miles were leading when another gearbox failure ended their race after a couple of hours. But in 1966, McLaren and Aiman made Henry Ford the second's dreams of beating Ferrari come true when the key we pair led home a clean sweep of the podium by the seven-litre GT40 Mark IIs. That was the race course, decided by a notorious photo finish in which the Ford management tried to arrange a dead heat for publicity reasons. But McLaren and Aiman controversially got the decision from the car of Ken Miles and Danny Hull. As seen, of course, in the very enjoyable film, Ford vs Ferrari, also known in some countries as Le Mans 66. Even more significant, Ethan McLaren, there was also the team's phenomenal success in the Cannes series. Tell us about that. Well, I never went to a Cannes race for, I suppose, for obvious reasons, because the series ran in Canada and America, hence the name Cannes, from 1966 to 1974 when I was a kid, and then again after a break from 1977 to 1987, which was before I'd started working in Modusport. But having said that, I think I can still say that I absolutely loved and loved Cannes. First of all, the circuits were fast, challenging and dangerous. The 1966 season, which was the first Cannes season, began at Hilly Montrom Blanc, San Javit, after which races followed at Daunting Bridge, Hampton, Scary Mossport, Challenging Laguna Saker, Peralace Riverside. I'm thinking of different adjectives for each one, as you notice. And I have to say, Bucking the Trend, Bucking the Trends Star Dust, who's heard of Star Dust these days, a nondescript three-mile road course in Spring Valley, Nevada, which was opened in 1966 and closed in 1968. And the lap record at Star Dust is and will always be held by Bruce. Bruce McLaren, setting the McLaren Chevy Cannem Car in 1968. And that, I think you'll agree, qualifies as another anorac fact. Definitely. And Star Dust, what a great name. I know the Star Dust Auderdron. It should still exist. It should shouldn't it. And I would add that in a better world, or at least a more romantic world, probably my world, Laguna Saker would have been hosting the US Grand Prix for the last 60 years. That's a good shout, actually. I won't argue with you there. Laguna Saker is a quite magnificent circuit. And as you say, it's a pity that it's never hosted a United States Grand Prix. Actually, of the circuits that have hosted United States Grand Prix, and there have been quite a few, the standout best of the bunch, I wonder if you'll agree, but I think the standout best of the bunch was Watkins Glen, in my humble opinion, with honorable mentions, probably for Riverside, Long Beach, and to give it its due Austin. What do you think? Not the Caesar's Palace Car Park at Las Vegas. Well, the original Las Vegas. Well, of course Carlos Roitman fans can't bear that place, because that's where he lost the World Championship in 1981. So please don't mention it ever again. That's the reason. It was a wonderful circuit if he'd won the championship there. But Watkins Glen, you're agreeing with me. I agree. Okay, I'll plow on. The can-am circuits were, as we've said, magnificent. And the can-am drivers were the very best in the world too. I mean, John Sertes won that inaugural 1966 can-am championship, winning three races. And the other three races were won by Dan Gurney, Mark Donahue, and Phil Hill. And Graham Hill, Chris Aiman, Peter Revesant, and yes, Bruce McClaren also took part. That's a pretty class line-up. It is. It is. Dramatist person, a tick box. Very, very good. And the next year, 1967, can-am became known as the Bruce and Denny Show. Denny being Bruce's friend, fellow Kiwi, and McClaren T. Mate Denny Hulm, of course. The former Bruce took the title, kick-starting a truly glorious five-year period of can-am domination by Bruce McClaren motor racing, during which Bruce won two series, Denny won two series, and Peter Revesant won one series. All of them in British, but beautiful, quite beautiful, big-enged papaya McClaren's. Because just as the can-am circuits and the can-am drivers were great, also Parex Alance, so were the can-am cars. For example, the McClaren M8F, in which Revesant won the fifth of that McClaren quintet of can-am championships, had an 8.1 liter Chevy V8 producing 800 horsepower BHB. It weighed just 646 kilograms. A lot less than a modern Formula One car, of course. So by that time, as I think you can imagine, if you do the power to weight some, if you do the calculation, can-am cars were seriously quick. Did you ever get to see a can-am race Richard? I wish, but like you, I read the reports and auto-sport, which made those races look, well, let's use an appropriate can-am term. Awesome. Totally awesome. No, we're awesome. But let's get back to Grand Prix racing. And at this point, Matt, since you've just used the word papaya, maybe we should mention the strange switches of color scheme on those early McClaren F1 cars. Well, yeah. The first McClaren Formula One cars were wiped with a green stripe. Wasn't that something to do with John Frankenheimer's movie, "Grom Prix"? Yes, it was. It was indeed. And as I explained in our podcast from season two about that very film, "Grom Prix", the producers struck a deal with McClaren to have their cars painted white to represent the fictional Yamura team, the team that James Garner's character Pete Aaron drove for in the movie. Yeah, winning the climactic Italian Grand Prix at Monzer, of course. Of course. It was a Hollywood movie, so the American driver asked to. Of course. Of course. Anyway, McClaren started off white with a green stripe. Yes, then they were red with a white nose band. And then they were papaya orange, in other words. You're not allowed to use the word orange, actually. It's papaya only, I believe. But they they are. They were and are orange. For can-am, first of all, from 1967 onwards, because in 1966, they were red, McClaren, can-am cars. No idea why they were red. Do you know why they're red? They were for Ferrari, I suppose. I don't know. I mean, it's true that I think when they raised at Monzer in the red livery, the Italians didn't like it until one of them got on the front row, and they're never perfectly happy to have a very happy one. That's a true story. Is it really? Yes. Anyway, they were orange in Can-am, sorry, papaya in Can-am from 1967 onwards, and also from 1968 onwards in Formula One, they were papaya. Teddy Mayer, Bruce's business partner, whom I previously mentioned, had seen the color scheme on a car at a club meeting somewhere, and thought it would look striking on television apparently. I bet whoever's car that was, wish they'd had royalty. I'd bet. I'd bet. I'd bet. McClaren's painted the papaya after that. Anyway, McClaren Formula One cars stayed papaya until the advent of sponsorship in 1971 when they became papaya and white, and then in 1974, came the red and white of the team's new title sponsor, Marbra, which striking livery lasted for more than 20 years, and is still regarded by many of us, perhaps me included, as the definitive McClaren livery, even though today's McClaren Formula One cars are, in fact, once again, papaya. The new orange paint job, let's call it what it is, certainly brought about a change of fortunes in F1, along with the arrival of the 3.0L Cosworth B8 engine, better known as the DFV, and of Denny Hall 4V. Yep. And after Lotus and Matrem, McClaren was
the third team to get their hands on the engine, and at Spa in the fourth race of the 1968 season, McLaren became the second team to take the engine to one of its 155 wins. That was with the M7A, designed by Robin Hood and Gordon Copperch, and with Bruce at the wheel, making him only the second man in history after Jack Rabben to win a Grand Prix in a car bearing his own name. Later on in the season, Denny Holm pitched in with Wins at Monza and Sanjaveet in Canada. That meant McLaren ended the season, runners up to Lotus in the Constructors Championship, with Holm 3rd and Bruce 5th in the driver's standings. So now there was no doubt at all that they belonged in F1, and at the sharp end. Absolutely right, absolutely right. And although Bruce was always a charismatic leader of men, central to his team's early organisational strength, was the presence of key figures such as Teddy Mayer, who might mention already and would later become team principal. Mayer, a New York lawyer with a sharp business brain, initially came along to support his brother Timmy's racing aspirations, but he quickly became a cornerstone of the team. What did he bring? He brought a talent for imposing organisational structure. He brought financial acumen, and he did also support Bruce with long-term vision, helping Bruce transition McLaren from a small back-street operation to a professional outfit capable of competing, you know, with the likes of Ferrari, Brabham and Lotus. And Tyler Alexander, another American and a hands-on mechanic and engineer, was Bruce's right-hand man in the workshop and at the circuits. Tyler's ability to translate conceptual ideas into lap time gain made him indispensable, especially and probably most famously when it came to developing the team's can-am cars into the super-dominant winners that they ended up being. But actually also in Formula One, the synergy between Teddy's management, Tyler's technical nows, and Bruce's, you know, overarching philosophy and leadership forged a brilliant blend of innovation and execution. And the team's strength was also enhanced by a culture of multi-role adaptability and low hierarchy, which allowed decisions to be made quickly based on technical merit rather than politics. Mechanics, engineers, even drivers were involved in the planning of testing and development programmes, you know, fostering a deep sense of ownership and commitment. Phil Carr, who you've mentioned already, McLaren's commercial manager by this stage played a crucial role in managing logistics and finance during a time when Formula One teams were tiny and operated on micro-budgets. And Alistair Caudwell, the chief mechanic, was also a very important figure. So the early McLaren organisation was small but highly effective, functioning more like a high performance workshop, well it was a workshop, it was in a workshop, than anything that we nowadays recognise as a Formula One team, but it worked. And although everyone at McLaren or McLaren's, toiled away in an atmosphere of chummy, industrious democracy, there was no doubt who the leader was, who set the team's compass point in terms of its ultimate ambition. And that was Bruce. As he wrote in from the cockpit, quote, "The first essential is enthusiasm, not just mild enthusiasm, but burning enthusiasm, to succeed in motor racing or any other sport, it must be the most important thing in your life." Bruce put it another way, as Hauden Gannley once told me, and I told you I was going to share an anecdote and here it comes. And Hauden started out in motorsport as a McLaren mechanic in 1963 and ended up as a Formula One driver, just imagine that career trajectory now, impossible. Anyway, he once told me, quote, "If Bruce had walked into the workshop one morning and had told us that we were all going to march across the Sahara desert that afternoon, we'd have immediately downed tools and followed him." Fantastic compliment. And so that seems like a good time to take our final ad break, but before we do, I should probably just tidy up our chronicle of McLaren in the 60s by saying that after the F1's successors of 1968, the following year, 1969 was a bit of a disappointment. The McLaren boys had to wait until the final grand prix of the decade for their only F1 win of the year, when Hulm took the last checkered flag of the season in Mexico City. Although Bruce's steady finish in the points took him to third place in the final drivers table, behind Jackie Stewart and Jackie Eek's. From a driving point of view, maybe 1969 was Bruce's most impressive year in F1. It probably was actually. Now let's take that short break. Welcome back. So now for the difficult bit. If you work or you have worked for McLaren, as I did for 10 years between 2008 and 2017, the date June 2nd is a very poignant one, because that's the date in 1970 on which the McLaren story could have come to a sudden juttering stop. And if you don't mind, I'm going to read a section of a column I wrote about it, about that date for motorsport, not because of the quality of my writing, which is both incidental and, of course, debate and, of course, impeccable. Debate a boy is what I was going to say, not impeccable. You're a far greater wordsmith than I am, dear boy. Anyway, the reason I want to read it is for the poignants of the words of the man whom I quoted extensively, my much-missed friend Tyler Alexander, who we've mentioned already, and who started at McLaren at the very beginning in 1963, and who was still there when I arrived at working in 2008. So proper stint, isn't it? What a shift. He did do a little bit of, he left and came back, but he was still there 45 years after he'd begun. Proper McLaren stalwart. Anyway, one day when Tyler and I were having coffee together in my office at the McLaren Technology Centre, flouting if I may say so, Ron Dennis is no drinks at workstations rule. I haven't fiddled with the thermostat on the air, can't I? No, no. Set to 21, as Ron always had to have it. Anyway, I asked him, Tyler, I mean not Ron, I asked Tyler about June 2nd, 1970, and Tyler was in a talkative mood, which wasn't always the case, actually, but today he warmed to his theme. This is what he said. Quote. I was having breakfast at a hotel in Indianapolis, because the Indy 500 had taken place just three days before, and we'd run a couple of cars in it for Peter Reveson and Karl Williams. Danny Holmes had had a testing shunted Indy before the big race, and his hands had been painfully burned, so I was already a bit concerned about that. Anyway, as I was sitting there having my breakfast, there was a Tanoi message, phone call for Mr Tyler Alexander, so I got up, I walked to the reception desk, and I took the call. It was Teddy Mayer. He told me that Bruce had bought the farm at Goodwood that day, unquote. I mean, bought the farm was a common euphemism among racing folk back then, of course, as you know Richard, it meant that a driver had been killed. Anyway, this is Tyler again, quote, "I flew straight to England. When I got there, I phoned up a few of the boys, and I asked them what they were going to do. Some of them said they might try to get a job at Brabham's or Cooper's. We all kind of assumed that the McLaren's dream was over. After all, Bruce was McLaren's. He wasn't only our boss, he was our leader, our mentor, our friend. And now that Bruce had gone, we all kind of assumed that McLaren's was gone too." Anyway, despite that, I decided to go into the workshop, and when I got there, I found that others had had the same idea. "What are you doing here?" I asked them. "I don't know. You just seem the right place to be," they said. "Soon Gordon Copac, our chief designer, began saying to people, okay, look, I can see that everyone's upset. So if you wanna go home and spend a bit of time with your wives and families, feel free to do so. Then Teddy Mayer stood up on a chair, asked for silence and said, yes. Gordon is right. We're all upset. We've lost a boss. We've lost a leader. We've lost a mentor. We've lost a friend. We've lost a driver. We've even lost a car. But, in a week's time we're due to fly to Canada for a can-am race at Mossport. I say we're going to go home.
give it our best shot for Bruce. I say we work like crazy to get the car ready and I'll try and find us a driver. Let's go for it." Then Tyler leaned forward across the meeting table in my office at which we were both sitting, took a sip of his cappuccino and said to me, "And we did. And we won." Richard, honestly, it makes me emotional to think of it now, even now. Those few men distressed and dispirited as they were, knuckled down to work day and night to build a new M.A.D. Canamcar. Teddy Mayer hired Dan Gurney to drive it. Exhausted, they flew to Canada and arrived at Mossport, which even then was regarded as a scarily dangerous place. Gurney took the pole. The next day he won the race. Those six words of Tyler's, and we did and we won have always been an inspiration to me. Because they expressed the esprit de corps and grim determination that characterise the way things sometimes have to be done in the sport I love, that you love and that we all love. Yeah, it makes me emotional too, just to listen to that description of the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and what attribute to the extraordinary mentality of racing people. And they couldn't have hired a better driver for the job of replacing Bruce, could they? Because in some ways, Dan Gurney was Bruce's American equivalent. He was a winning driver in Grand Prix and at the mall and an engineer who launched his own team with great success. Good point, actually. Good point. And Dan would have appreciated what it meant. I think he realised he was stepping in in a very important way. Is it possible that to speculate on how the team might have evolved had Bruce lived? Well, that's a truly fascinating what if question, Richard, isn't it? Let me answer it this way. Because Bruce started in Formula One at just 20, 20 years old, which as we've already said was incredibly young in those days, in the late 50s. He might well have raced on into the late 1970s. Indeed, bear with me on this, since he was a methodical, solid, fast but not super fast driver, I suppose in the Graham Hillmold rather than the white knuckle 10/10 genius mold of the likes of Ronnie Peterson, for instance. He, Bruce, might even have been able to race on until 1980, bear with me on this. By which time he had, I mean, he'd have only been 42 or 43 in 1980. Indeed, I mentioned Graham Hill and just like Graham Hill, who raced in Formula One until well into his 40s. Anyway, I find that a captivating thought, just imagine that a driver could have made his Grompry debut at Nürburgring in 1958, as Bruce did, in a race for which Mike Hawthorne put a front-engine Ferrari on the pole and Tony Brooks won in a front-engine van war, and then raced on until 1980 in a ground-effect McLaren, his teammate, a young Frenchman named Alan Prost. What a thought. I'm tempted to suggest that Prost had been his teammate, it probably wouldn't have ended happily. Well, yeah, but we get in trouble whenever we say anything negative about Prost. Okay, so for the record, he was a wonderful driver and a great teammate and a four-time world champion and a legend of the sport. Yep. All that. Anyway, enough of Prost. Sorry, going back to Bruce McLaren, had he lived, would Bruce have won the 1974 Formula One drivers world championship for McLaren instead of Emerson Filippaldi? Would he have won the 1976 Formula One drivers world championship for McLaren instead of James Hunt? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, maybe. Well, he'd still have only been in his thirties, even in 1976. So obviously, obviously, we'll never know. But I reckon since we're doing a bit of virtual rewriting of history, I reckon that McLaren would have continued to develop under Bruce's and Teddy's leadership just as well as, or perhaps even better than, it developed under Teddy's leadership alone in Bruce's absence, which by the way, which development was of course pretty damn impressive anyway without Bruce. But perhaps alongside himself, Bruce would have had to realize that he needed drivers who were that bit faster than he was, drivers like Filippaldi and Hunt in fact. Yeah, fair enough. So in the circumstances and in the short term, what kind of job did Teddy Mayor and Tyler Alexander do after Bruce's death? Did they ever come close to folding the company? Oh no, no, no. I think ever since that inspirational and we did and we won moment in June 1970, the McLaren team was always going to survive and thrive. Yeah, nonetheless, when Ron Dennis' project Ford took over McLaren in 1980, they were in pretty bad shape, weren't they? They'd fallen a long way from the heights of the glory years. Do you think Ron had Bruce's example in his head? I'm not thinking just about the business of building racing cars, but the best way to run and shape a company. Well, it's a good question, another good question. And Ron actually said it was, "Bruce's can do philosophy and commitment to excellence." That he most admired, Ron most admired. Bruce from Ron were very different characters obviously, but they had a lot in common too. Above all, what they had in common was that burning ambition that Bruce wrote about in from the cockpit. But actually, in terms of developing groundbreaking new methods and philosophies via which Formula One teams would become ever more successful, which I think process was led by McLaren in the 1980s and they had huge success in the 1980s. I think Ron took things on to a new level beyond what the legends of the past. I mean, men like Enzo Ferrari, Colin Chapman, Jack Brabham and indeed Bruce McLaren had ever envisaged. I'm sort of interviewing you now, Matt, because in the 10 years you spent at McLaren, you must have absorbed a lot of its history. Even decades after his death was Bruce in any sense of presence at the McLaren Technology Centre. I know that he and Pat had a daughter who is still, I think, an ambassador for the company. Amanda, yes, McLaren Automotive specifically. Which is the roadcar business? Yes, yes, the roadcar business. To be honest, when you may not like this Richard, but the answer is probably no. And what I mean is by the time I arrived at McLaren in January 2008, I mean, Bruce had been dead for nearly 38 years. So yes, of course, the team still carried his name. And yes, of course, his Austin 7 Ulster still sat in pride of place in the McLaren Technology Centre Boulevard. But Bruce wasn't a presence at McLaren by that time. I suppose any more than Enzo Ferrari is a presence per se at Maronello today. Do you think he is one? No, no, I'm going to have to argue with you. Okay, okay. With you over that one, I think Enzo Ferrari is still the shadow hanging over every man who takes the team principles role, or the chairman's role at the Scuderia. But I'm sure you're right about McLaren. Well, let's just discuss that for a second because you may well be right. I don't know you're much more of a Ferrari expert than I am, but Ferrari history. Do you think if we hooked Fred Vassar up to a polygraph here and said, "Easonso Ferrari, a daily inspiration to you, Fred, how he would answer it?" Oh, an inspiration. I'm not sure that that quite sums it up. I mean, I think Ferrari, the idea of Ferrari, maybe more than the historical reality, is always something to live up to. So in that sense of presence, yeah, I mean, I went there once when he was still alive. He was in his office. I didn't see him, but boy, what's his presence felt around the world. I think that's still there. But I mean, I take your point and I'm sure you're right about McLaren. Well, I am not criticising or in any way downplaying the role of Bruce McLaren. As you well know. Yeah. But people don't go around the place or they thinking, "What would Bruce have done, basically?" I've never heard that said. Having said all that, I'm going to tell you a little story. As we all know, and as we've said at length, Bruce was killed at Goodwood, testing a McLaren MAD can am car on June the 2nd, 1970. 40 years later, in 2010, I was McLaren's comms and PR chief. And as the 40 year anniversary of Bruce's death approached, my comms and PR colleagues and I began to discuss how we should best commemorate it. We considered a minute silence, but that seemed a bit too obvious. Then Steve Cooper, a great guy, a dear friend, a dear friend now whom I'd hired to McLaren, and whom by the way I then hired again to Asden Martin when I moved to Asden Martin, and who's still at Asden Martin now. In fact, Steve, not me, I mean. Anyway, Steve hit on a much better idea. A minute's noise.
The M.A.D. that Bruce had been testing at Goodwood when he was killed in it had been wrecked in the accident. So that wasn't a possibility. But its sister, Denny's M.A.D. was on display in the McLaren Technology Centre Boulevard. So, under the direction of Tyler, Tyler Alexander, who had worked on those can-am monsters back in the day, of course, Capably assisted by another McLaren stalwart Neil Trundle, one of Ron Dennis' early business partners before either of them, was at McLaren. Anyway, Denny's M.A.D. was ready for June 2, 2010. When the day arrived, everyone downed tools and filed out of the factory, outside which that hunkyly beautiful papaya car was waiting. And Ron, wearing an expensive dark suit, as always, and the time meticulously knotted, as always, positioned himself behind its muscular exhausts. When it was fired up, a Neil, Neil Trundle gave its throttle a bit of stick, actually a hell of a lot of stick. The sound it made was prodigiously loud. Some of us had already popped plugs into our ears because we knew what to expect, others perhaps unaware and therefore unprepared for the truly guttural roar of an old can-am car being given the beans, hurriedly jabbed their fingers into their ears. But what about Ron? Ron wore no ear plugs, and he didn't put his fingers in his ears either, yet he didn't flinch, and by the way he was standing behind the exhausts. He stood where he was, as still as a statue, until the minute was done. As we all filed away, Tyler staged whispered the following words in my direction, which I remember well, quote, "Say what you like about Ron, but he's one I've only about three or four of us here today who'd be able to strip that car down and build it back up without asking anyone how to do it." Unquote. That was good, said Ron, as he turned on his trademark tassled loafers and made his way back to his office, ready to chair that month's board meeting. That's a really lovely story. But it's interesting that something Zach Brown did when he took control as CEO in 2018, was to restore the papaya color scheme for the F1 team. That was after decades of the cars racing in their sponsors' colors, not just Red and White for Marbra, but Graham Black for West, Silver and Red for Vodafone. Now they're winning again, and they're the second most successful team after Ferrari in the history of the F1 World Championship. Is that a coincidence? Well, McLaren are also the second oldest Formula One team after Ferrari, aren't they? Yeah. You know, they've had good times and bad times as Ferrari have, but I think their win stats are as much a function of their. I'm talking about McLaren now, as much a function of their longevity as of their enduring quality, and I'm not slaying off McLaren. I love McLaren. But anyway, Formula One is cyclical. It always has been, and it always will be. McLaren are on a high now, but that won't last forever. Ferrari are struggling now by their high standards anyway, but that won't last forever either. They'll bounce back. Yeah, they surely will, even though that's not always how it feels. True. Anyway, before we bring this episode to a close, here's a thought from the racer's Mark Hughes, writing in Motorsport magazine back in 1999, on how Bruce McLaren should be remembered. Quote, "As a driver, he was good, but not great. It was as someone with an innate ability to attract the right people, as an engineer, and as a truly inspirational leader, that would prove him to be so very special." Quote, "As a driver, then, good, but not great. Well, maybe not great by the standards of a Fangio, a Senna Hamilton, or a Verstappen. Of course, I'm old enough to remember seeing him race, and I have to say that, unless you were a Kiwi, he didn't really stir the blood, like Sage M. Clarke did. But better than good, I think. What do you say, Matt? Yes, better than good, and I suppose, therefore, good but not great is about right, I reckon. I mean, let's put it this way, more of a Graham Hill than Ronnie Peterson. Yeah. But that's still pretty damn good. As Kentirall said, as you observed an hour or so ago, and to quote him again, "I thought Bruce would become World Champion because he had the ability to think about it. He wasn't going to be the world's quickest driver, but then the world's quickest driver isn't always World Champion." Yes, and thinking about it, his ambition was more than just driving, wasn't it? It was to build his own team. If he'd done what Graham Hill did for most of his career, which was go from team to team, then maybe he would have won more, and maybe he would have got closer to the World Champion, Bean World Champion anyway. But of course, his contribution to motor racing was much greater than his deeds in the cockpit. And as long as there are cars called McLaren's, preferably painted papaya, he'll be a presence in F1. Indeed, he will. And that feels like a very good place to say, and colossally, that's history, and to wrap up our episode on Bruce McLaren. Driver, leader, pioneer, legend. A huge thank you for joining us for this episode. And if you liked what you've heard, there are nine more episodes coming in season four, plus a bonus end of the season Q&A episode for those of you in the Race Members Club on Patreon. If you'd like to submit a question to Matt and me for that episode, head to patreon.com/thecynum. It costs about the same as a cup of coffee per month, or that's going up all the time. Yes, it's probably better value than we've been. You and I have been to Fubob in Pret this morning to be fair. Anyway, continue. Little plug for Pretta Mongey. Could they please sponsor up this podcast? We'll accept all sponsorship offers. Anyway, yes, not only do you get our bonus Q&A episode, and bonus episodes from the race's other shows like Bring Back V10s, you'll also be able to listen to this episode and the rest of our Back Catalog add free. And if you're new to the podcast, we do hope you'll go back and check out seasons one, two, and three, because we've already covered so many wonderful topics and we wouldn't want you to miss them. Nice to have a Back Catalog, isn't it? Like the Rolling Stones. Anyway, if you have any feedback, comments or questions about this episode or the podcast in general, we'd love to hear from you. How can people get in touch, Matt? Well, Richard, they can drop us a line via
[email protected], or they can find you and me on social media. I'm @TheBishF1, and you Richard are @RWilliams1947. We can't always reply to everything, but we do promise we read every message you send us. And the same goes for your kind reviews on Apple podcasts and Spotify. That's it for this episode. Until next time, with thanks to our producer, the papaya huge Johnny Reynolds, and to you for listening, it's goodbye from me. And it's goodbye from him. The Athletic. [BLANK_AUDIO]
PodcastTranscript AI