McLaren Racing Limited is a British motor racing group based at the McLaren Technology Centre, Woking, Surrey, England. McLaren is best referred to as a Solution One constructor and also has a history of completing in American open wheel racing as both an entrant and a chassis constructor, and has won the Canadian-American Obstacle Cup (Can-Am) cars racing champion. The team is the second earliest active, and second most successful Solution One group after Ferrari, having won 182 races, Drivers' Champions and 8 Constructors' Championships. The team is a completely owned subsidiary of the McLaren Group. Founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren, the group won its first Grand Prix at the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix, but their greatest preliminary success remained in Can-Am, which they controlled from 1967 to 1971. Further American victory followed, with Indianapolis 500 wins in McLaren cars and trucks for Mark Donohue in 1972 and Johnny Rutherford in 1974 and 1976. After Bruce McLaren died in a testing mishap in 1970, Teddy Mayer took control of and led the group to their very first Formula One Constructors' Championship in 1974, with Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt winning the Drivers' Championship in 1974 and 1976 respectively. The year 1974 likewise marked the start of an enduring sponsorship by Phillip Morris' Marlboro cigarette brand.In 1981, McLaren combined with Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing; Dennis took over as team principal and soon after arranged a buyout of the initial McLaren investors to take complete control of the group. This began the team's most successful age: with Porsche and Honda engines, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, and Ayrton Senna took between them 7 Chauffeurs' Champions and the group took 6 Builders' Championships. The mix of Prost and Senna was especially dominant-- together they won all but one race in 1988-- however later on their competition soured and Prost left for Ferrari. Fellow English group Williams used the most constant challenge during this period, the two winning every fabricators' title in between 1984 and 1994. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s, Honda had Click for source actually withdrawn from Solution One, Senna had actually relocated to Williams, and the group went 3 seasons without a win. With Mercedes-Benz engines, West sponsorship, and former Williams designer Adrian Newey, further championships came in 1998 and 1999 with driver Mika Häkkinen, and during the 2000s the team were consistent front-runners, chauffeur Lewis Hamilton taking their newest title in 2008. Ron Dennis retired as McLaren team principal in 2009, handing over to long time McLaren employee Martin Whitmarsh. However, at the end of 2013, after the team's worst season because 2004, Whitmarsh was ousted. McLaren announced in 2013 that they would be using Honda engines from 2015 onwards, replacing Mercedes-Benz.
The team raced as McLaren Honda for the first time because 1992 at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix. In September 2017, McLaren announced they had agreed on an engine supply with Renault from 2018 to 2020. McLaren will return to use Mercedes-Benz engines from the 2021 season until at least 2024. After initially returning to the Indianapolis 500 in 2017 as a partner to Andretti Autosport to run Fernando Alonso, McLaren announced in August 2019 that they would run in conjunction with Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports starting in 2020 to run the complete IndyCar Series, the combined entry being named Arrow McLaren SP. Bruce McLaren Motor Racing was founded in 1963 by New Zealander Bruce McLaren. Bruce was a works chauffeur for the British Formula One team Cooper with whom he had won 3 Grands Prix and come 2nd in the 1960 World Champion. Wishing to contend in the Australasian Tasman Series, Bruce approached his employers, but when group owner Charles Cooper demanded utilizing 1.5-litre Formula One-specification engines instead of the 2.5-litre motors allowed by the Tasman rules, Bruce decided to establish his own group to run him and his potential Formula One teammate Timmy Mayer with custom-built Cooper cars and trucks.