Bruce McLaren Biography, Wiki, Cause Of Death, Racing Career

Bruce McLaren Biography: Bruce Leslie McLaren was a New Zealand racing car designer, driver, engineer, and inventor. His legacy lives on in the McLaren team, which has won eight World Constructors’ Championships and twelve World Drivers’ Championships.

Bruce McLaren Biography

Bruce McLaren Biography: Bruce McLaren was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and attended Meadowbank Primary School. As a nine-year-old, he was diagnosed with Perthes disease in his hip, which caused his left leg to be shorter than his right. Les and Ruth McLaren had a service station and workshop on Remuera Rd in Remuera, Auckland; Les McLaren had previously been a motorbike racing enthusiast, but due to an injury before Bruce’s birth, he switched to racing cars at the club level instead. Bruce spent all his free time at the workshop during his early years.

Bruce McLaren Wiki

Bruce McLaren’s Cause Of Death

On June 2, 1970, 32-year-old Bruce McLaren was killed when his Can-Am car crashed on the Lavant Straight just before Woodcote Corner at the Goodwood Circuit in England. When he was evaluating his new McLaren M8D, the rear bodywork became loose at high speed. The loss of aerodynamic downforce destabilized the vehicle, causing it to spin, leave the track, and collide with a flag station shelter.

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Bruce McLaren Career

Les McLaren restored an Austin 7 Ulster that Bruce, then 14 years old, used to enter his first competition, a hill climb, in 1952. He participated in his first legit race two years later and demonstrated promise. He upgraded from the Austin to a Ford 10 special, then to an Austin-Healey, and finally to a Formula Two (F2) Cooper-Climax sports racing car. He immediately proceeded to modify, enhance, and master it to the point where he finished second in the New Zealand championship series for 1957–58.

In 1958, his performance at the New Zealand Grand Prix caught the attention of Australian driver Jack Brabham, who then invited McLaren to drive for him. Due to his clear potential, the New Zealand International Grand Prix organization selected him for its ‘Driver to Europe’ program, designed to provide a promising New Zealand driver with year-round experience with the best. McLaren was the first recipient, and later winners included Denny Hulme. McLaren joined Cooper and remained there for seven years. He competed in F2 and contested the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, where both F2 and F1 cars competed. He shocked the motorsports community by being the first F2 and fifth overall in a field of the world’s finest drivers.

McLaren joined the Cooper factory Formula One team alongside Jack Brabham in 1959 & won the 1959 United States Grand Prix at the age of 22 years and 104 days, becoming the youngest GP winner to date (excluding the Indianapolis 500). This record stood for over four decades until Fernando Alonso won the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2003. Following that, he won the Argentine Grand Prix, the opening race of the 1960 Formula One season, and would finish second to Brabham that year.

In 1962, McLaren won the Monaco Grand Prix and ultimately finished third in the championship. The following year, he established Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, which continues to compete in the Formula One championship as McLaren. McLaren continued to win races with Coopers, including the 1964 New Zealand Grand Prix.

McLaren departed Cooper at the end of 1965 and formed his own Grand Prix racing team with fellow New Zealander Chris Amon. Amon passed in 1967 to become a Ferrari driver. In 1968, another New Zealander, Denny Hulme, who had won the world championship with Brabham in 1967, joined McLaren. At Spa in 1968, McLaren raced his own McLaren car to his fourth career victory and the team’s first Grand Prix victory. In the McLaren-Ford, Hulme won twice.

The 1969 championship was also a success, as McLaren finished third despite not winning any races. As a nod to his native country, McLaren’s cars featured the “speedy Kiwi” logo.