Constructors’ championship · after R15
McLaren
McLaren Mastercard F1 Team
- Position
- P3
- Points
- 306
- Wins
- 2
- Podiums
- 7
- Poles
- 3
Constructors’ championship · after R15
McLaren
McLaren Mastercard F1 Team
- Position
- P3
- Points
- 306−232 to the leader
- Wins
- 2
- Podiums
- 7
- Poles
- 3
Drivers
Points by round
Driver head-to-head
15 rounds togetherAbout the team
How it began
Bruce McLaren Motor Racing was founded in 1963 by the New Zealand racing driver Bruce McLaren, a native of Auckland. The team entered the World Championship in 1966: at the Monaco Grand Prix on 22 May 1966 Bruce started tenth and retired on lap nine with an oil leak. Denny Hulme brought the first podium, second place at the Spanish Grand Prix on 12 May 1968, and the founder took the first win himself: the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa on 9 June 1968, from sixth on the grid.
Bruce McLaren was killed at Goodwood on 2 June 1970 while testing a Can-Am car. The team missed the next race, the Belgian Grand Prix, came back a few weeks later and kept its founder’s name. In Can-Am it won five championships in a row, from 1967 to 1971, and its cars won the Indy 500 three times.
First titles and Ron Dennis
In 1974 the team won both titles for the first time: Emerson Fittipaldi became world champion and McLaren took the Constructors’ Championship. In 1976 James Hunt became champion in the same model, the M23. Then came a slump: after Hunt’s win at the Japanese Grand Prix on 23 October 1977 the team went more than three years without a win, finishing eighth, seventh and ninth in the Constructors’ Championship in 1978, 1979 and 1980.
Before the 1981 season the team merged with Project Four, Ron Dennis’s Formula 2 and Formula 3 outfit. This created McLaren International, and the cars took the MP4 name, which they carried for more than three decades. The first of them, John Barnard’s MP4/1, was the first Formula 1 car with a carbon-fibre monocoque. John Watson won the British Grand Prix in it on 18 July 1981 — the team’s first win since 1977.
Lauda, Prost and Senna
In 1984 the team won twelve of the sixteen races: Niki Lauda became champion and McLaren took the Constructors’ Championship. Alain Prost won the 1985 and 1986 titles, and in 1985 the team won the Constructors’ Championship as well.
In 1988 the Honda-powered MP4/4 won fifteen of the sixteen races. Ayrton Senna sealed the title by winning the Japanese Grand Prix on 30 October 1988. Prost was champion in 1989 and Senna in 1990 and 1991; the team held the Constructors’ Championship for four seasons in a row, from 1988 to 1991. Senna’s last win for McLaren came at the Australian Grand Prix on 7 November 1993.
The Mercedes era
From 1995 to 2014 the team raced with Mercedes engines. The partnership’s first win came at the Australian Grand Prix on 9 March 1997, when David Coulthard won the team’s first race since the 1993 season. Mika Häkkinen took his first win at the European Grand Prix at Jerez on 26 October 1997, then became champion in 1998 and 1999, both times sealing the title by winning the Japanese Grand Prix — on 1 November 1998 and 31 October 1999. The 1998 Constructors’ Championship was the team’s eighth.
Lewis Hamilton made his debut with the team in 2007, won four races in his first season and lost the title to Kimi Räikkönen by one point. A year later, on 2 November 2008, fifth place at the Brazilian Grand Prix, earned by passing Timo Glock at the last corner, made him champion by one point from Felipe Massa. The last win of that era was Jenson Button’s victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix on 25 November 2012: the team then waited almost nine years for the next one.
Decline and rebuilding
In 2015 the team went back to Honda engines: that season brought no podiums, and McLaren-Honda finished ninth, sixth and ninth again in the Constructors’ Championship in 2015, 2016 and 2017. From 2018 to 2020 the team was a Renault customer, and in 2020 it climbed to third in the Constructors’ Championship. McLaren Racing’s CEO is Zak Brown, at McLaren since late 2016; Lando Norris has driven for the team since the 2019 season.
Since 2021 the team has once again used Mercedes power units. At the Italian Grand Prix on 12 September 2021 Daniel Ricciardo and Norris finished first and second — the team’s first win since 2012. In December 2022 Andrea Stella was appointed team principal; he had been at McLaren since 2015 and was previously a Ferrari engineer who worked with Michael Schumacher, Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso. From the 2023 season the second seat went to Oscar Piastri, champion in both Formula 3 and Formula 2.
Back on top
Norris took his first win at the Miami Grand Prix on 5 May 2024, and Piastri his at the Hungarian Grand Prix on 21 July 2024. The 2024 Constructors’ Championship was decided at the final race of the season: Norris won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 8 December 2024, and the team took the title for the first time since 1998, fourteen points ahead of Ferrari.
The team opened 2025 with Norris winning the Australian Grand Prix on 16 March, and at the Hungarian Grand Prix on 3 August 2025 it took its 200th World Championship win. The Constructors’ Championship was sealed at the Singapore Grand Prix on 5 October 2025, with six rounds to spare; Norris and Piastri won seven races each. The drivers’ title went down to the final race: in Abu Dhabi on 7 December 2025 Norris finished third and Piastri second, and Norris became McLaren’s first world champion since Hamilton.
2026 season
The team started 2026 with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the Mercedes-powered MCL40; under the new regulations about half of the power comes from the electrical side, and the aerodynamics have become active. The season opened with the Australian Grand Prix on 8 March 2026, where Norris finished fifth. Piastri took the team’s first podium of the year, second at the Japanese Grand Prix on 29 March 2026, and in Miami on 3 May 2026 both drivers made the podium: Norris second, Piastri third.
McLaren marked the Monaco Grand Prix on 7 June 2026 as its 1,000th World Championship Grand Prix — at the same circuit where it had made its debut sixty years earlier; Piastri finished fourth. Norris took his first win of the year at the Hungarian Grand Prix on 26 July 2026 from pole, his first as world champion; on 23 August 2026 he won at Zandvoort, again from pole. At the Spanish Grand Prix on the new Madrid circuit on 13 September 2026 Norris took pole and finished third.
- Founded
- 1963, Bruce McLaren
- Championship debut
- Monaco Grand Prix, 22 May 1966
- First podium
- Spanish Grand Prix, 12 May 1968, Denny Hulme
- First win
- Belgian Grand Prix, 9 June 1968, Bruce McLaren
- Constructors’ titles
- 1974, 1984, 1985, 1988–1991, 1998, 2024, 2025
- Drivers’ titles
- 1974, 1976, 1984–1986, 1988–1991, 1998, 1999, 2008, 2025
- The team’s 1,000th Grand Prix
- Monaco Grand Prix, 7 June 2026
- Base
- Woking, McLaren Technology Centre
- Team principal
- Andrea Stella, appointed in December 2022
Team history
- constructors’ titles
- 10
- drivers’ titles
- 13
- wins
- 205
- podiums
- 565
- starts
- 1,008