Who exactly are McLaren? Liam Lawson’s ‘bullsh*t’ national anthem claim explored

Ask Liam Lawson what he thinks about the fact that McLaren Racing have opted to play the British national anthem as opposed to its native New Zealand anthem to celebrate a win, and he’ll tell you — or, at least, he told The Red Flags Podcast recently — that the decision is “bullsh*t.”

“Especially if you’re from New Zealand, because Bruce McLaren is a legend,” he said. Though a little tongue-in-cheek, Lawson raises a pertinent point: How, exactly, should a team define its nationality in the international sport of Formula 1? Let’s dig in.

McLaren Racing: A History

There may be no Formula 1 team quite as chameleon-like in its mindset as McLaren. The team founded in the 1960s by a dedicated but fun-loving New Zealander has transformed time and again — from ultra-cool innovators to clean-cut disciplinarians to a team that feels renewed and youthful.

Throw a dart at a spread of McLaren’s involvement in F1, and there’s a good chance each toss will land in an entirely different company culture. There was a time when the McLaren race shop was the home of countless pranksters; in the early 2000s, McLaren asked its drivers to cut their hair to adopt an appropriately respectable look.

The most recent iteration of McLaren has been championed by its current CEO, Zak Brown, who has pivoted toward something of a “disruptor” stance. Modern McLaren is punchy. It aims to expand well beyond the traditional definitions of a “team,” instead creating a multi-faceted motorsport program of which F1 is merely one component.

By experimenting with and taking part in other forms of motorsport, McLaren is keen on diversifying itself, drawing inspiration from as many series as it can. That mindset keeps it on the cutting edge, always ready to dive head-first into its latest challenge.

But it all comes down to Bruce McLaren.

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On August 30, 1937 a frail boy named Bruce was born to the humble McLaren family in Auckland, New Zealand. The McLarens made their living with their own automobile service station and workshop, and despite a sudden diagnosis of Perthes disease at nine years old that left him strapped to a metal frame for two years and resulted in one leg growing shorter than the other, Bruce was determined to spend as much time around cars as possible.

At 14 years old, in 1952, McLaren entered his first competition: a hillclimb. Two years later, he began racing, first behind the wheel of an Austin 7 Ulster, then a Ford 10 special, then an Austin-Healey before he graduated to his first open-wheel machine, a Cooper-Climax Formula 2 car.

With few resources at his disposal, young McLaren dedicated himself to the art of all things automotive. His father raced at the club level, which saw the McLaren family heading out to small local tracks on the weekends. During the week, Bruce would spend time at his family’s workshop, tinkering with cars and discovering the kind of fine-tuning that can milk additional performance out of an otherwise capable engine.

At the time, New Zealand wasn’t exactly a known hotspot for motorsport; racing took place there, but the bulk of action was either happening in continental Europe or in America. That’s why Jack Brabham, himself an Australian racer who had managed to make the move from local race tracks to the big leagues of Formula 1 Grand Prix racing, took notice of McLaren; he kept an eye on the racing scene that continued to flourish in Oceania, and he knew Bruce McLaren had something special.

In the late 1950s, the New Zealand International Grand Prix Organization, which helped sanction local motorsport events, had developed a scholarship titled Driver to Europe. The scholarship was designed to provide Kiwi drivers with the assistance needed to spend a year in Europe embedded with professional motorsport talent, and the need for such a scholarship became clear; McLaren, its first recipient, had skill that far outmatched his means. Without support, McLaren never could have booked a ticket to England.

And so in 1958, McLaren signed his first contract to race for a professional racing team, Cooper.

Between 1958 and 1970, McLaren started 100 Grands Prix, winning four races and finishing on the podium 27 times. His first victory at the 1959 US Grand Prix made him the youngest Grand Prix winner at the time, and in 1963, he founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing in order to continue competing in the Australasian Tasman Series.

But when it came time to found that team, McLaren was living and working in England. The team’s first shop was in Feltham but moved to Colnbrook in 1965. In terms of registering his team, he did so under a British racing license. And rather than racing with a national colour scheme — neither British racing green nor the green/silver combo denoting a New Zealand-based outfit — McLaren opted for sponsored liveries and then, later, swapped to the bright papaya orange shade in 1967.

It was part of Bruce McLaren’s ongoing efforts to find a unique identity for the team. He’d initially commissioned a kiwi badge to highlight the founder’s New Zealand origins, but he didn’t find a distinct livery for several years.

His business partner, American Teddy Mayer, suggested they select a distinct shade that would look as good on black-and-white television as it would in the competition’s rearview mirrors.

Mayer had spotted a bright orange car at a small race meet in England and thought it’d do just the trick. The now-distinctive shade debuted at the start of the 1967 Canadian-American Challenge Cup season and moved to Formula 1 the year after and remained on the car until 1972, after McLaren had been killed testing one of his own machines; at that point, McLaren adopted a Yardley livery.

Seeing this history laid out, it’s totally possible to argue, on the one hand, that Bruce McLaren’s foundational role should be enough to warrant the adoption of the New Zealand anthem as a way to pay homage to a stunning driver-turned-engineer who gave his life to guarantee the success of a team whose legacy remains as vibrant as ever before.

Yet the team was founded in England; even if it didn’t adopt the standard British Racing Green of the region, it did compete under a British license — and that was a decision made by McLaren himself.

More than anything, though, national pride wasn’t really a factor in the formation of the McLaren Racing team the same way it was for, say, Lotus or Ferrari.

The initial organisation pulled together the best talent from around the world: Kiwi, American, British, it didn’t matter. What mattered was creating a distinct identity in the racing world, and that’s something the outfit achieved in spades, regardless of its associated anthem.

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