Kiwi Bruce McLaren founded the team in 1964, although it was 1966 before the team made its Formula 1 debut at that year's Monaco Grand Prix with McLaren at the wheel. Appropriately it was McLaren who took the first grand prix victory for the team at Spa in 1968 in the M7. But the team was struck a massive blow when its founder was killed testing a sportscar at Goodwood in 1970.

However, under the management of American lawyer Teddy Mayer, McLaren recovered to take their first world title victory in 1974 courtesy of Emerson Fittipaldi. The team also ran in Marlboro colours that season for the first time, signalling the start of a sponsorship arrangement that would last for 22 years.

James Hunt staged a heroic battle with Niki Lauda for the world championship in 1976 which the Englishman won by a point, largely due to Lauda's horrifying crash in that season's German Grand Prix. Ron Dennis had been running his own Formula 2 team called Project Four for Marlboro. His cars were Marlboro sponsored and successful and this allowed him to takeover the troubled McLaren Grand Prix team with the blessing of Phillip Morris.

Dennis brought in a new level of professionalism and a new designer in John Barnard. In 1981 Barnard heralded a major technical revolution which his introduction of the first carbonfibre monocoque F1 car, the MP4.

In 1983 Dennis brought Porsche on-board to design a new turbo engine. This unit powered the team to three championships in the mid-Eighties with Lauda winning in '84 and Prost taking the honours in '85 and '86.

Honda came on board for 1988 to herald an era of dominance unlikely to be matched again in Formula 1. The formidable driving squad of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost took 15 out of 16 race wins that season, with Senna taking the title. They only managed a meager 10 out 16 victories the season after, as this time Prost took the title with the new Honda V10 again the class of the field. However, infighting between Prost and Senna threatened to tear the team apart and Prost left for Ferrari at the end of that year.

1990 and 1991 saw further championships for Senna and more constructors' honours for McLaren. The Woking outfit then became outclassed in the chassis stakes by Williams' FW14 and the team lost their Honda deal.

A new alliance was forged with Mercedes for the start of 1995 and despite a hapless flirtation with Nigel Mansell in the early part of that season, McLaren bounced back to competitiveness. The team confirmed their return to the front of the field as Mika Hakkinen took back-to-back championships with McLaren in 1998 and 1999.