Bruce McLaren, the Auckland boy who built one of the most successful racing teams in history

A deep-dive profile by NEWS WIRE

The lap that mattered most to Bruce McLaren’s posthumous reputation was run by somebody else, in a car he never saw, on a circuit he had never driven, fifty-four years after he was killed. On 8 December 2024, in Abu Dhabi, the McLaren team won the Formula One Constructors’ Championship for the first time since 1998. The cars were black and orange. The drivers were a Briton and an Australian. The man whose name was painted across the nose had been dead since June 1970.