Bruce McLaren

Name: Bruce McLaren

Nationality: New Zealand

Date of birth: August 30, 1937 - Auckland

Date of death: June 2, 1969 - Goodwood

In 1958 McLaren won a Driver to Europe award which help fund a season of racing based in the UK and the young New Zealander with the sunny disposition quickly made his mark as an accomplished, smooth and very polished performer. Promoted quickly to the Cooper works team, he won the 1959 US Grand Prix at Sebring and followed that up by winning the first race of the following season in Argentina. He would later also win at Monaco in 1962 at the wheel of a Cooper, but the British team was steadily losing its competitive edge and the ambitious McLaren soon founded his own operation. Racing in both F1 and the lucrative US-based Can-Am sports car series, McLaren also shared the winning Ford at Le Mans in 1966. He was a shrewd engineer, a popular employer and very much the driving force behind McLaren Cars. He was killed testing one his Can-Am cars at Goodwood.

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