A minute’s noise for Bruce McLaren

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As mentioned in the round-up this morning, today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Bruce McLaren.

McLaren held a minute’s noise in memory of the team founder at their headquarters today.

Following a minute’s silence they fired up and revved the 8.0-litre Chevrolet V8 in one of their McLaren M8D Can-Am cars for one minute at quarter past three this afternoon.

Executive chairman Ron Dennis was present along with Bruce McLaren’s former colleague Tyler Alexander. Team principal Martin Whitmarsh said:

The 40th anniversary of Bruce McLaren’s death gives us the opportunity to reflect on his legacy, and to appreciate just how much of his original vision still lives on within our team. Bruce made his name not only as a skilled and disciplined racing driver, but also as a pragmatic engineer with the inspiration, vision and determination to take on and beat the greatest teams in motorsport.

It’s an ethos that still holds true to this day, and one which Ron was careful to foster and promote when he assumed control of the team in 1980. Through Ron’s guidance and stewardship, McLaren remains a company that is passionate about technology and engineering, and which is set apart by its keen sense of competition, attention to detail and desire to be the best.

Bruce’s values have seen us maintain a winning legacy throughout six decades of competition, and have rewarded us with victories in the Formula 1 world championship, the North American Can-Am series, the Indy 500, Formula 5000 and the Le Mans 24 Hours. Winning will always be central to the McLaren DNA. We are honoured to uphold the McLaren name. And, for many millions of people around the world, the name McLaren is motor racing – there can be no greater testament to Bruce than that.
Martin Whitmarsh

Make sure you see the video up on their website at the moment about Bruce McLaren as well.

The minute's noise
Ron Dennis and Tyler Alexander with the McLaren M8D

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “A minute’s noise for Bruce McLaren”

  1. What a great touch to the celebration of a fantastic man. Even if he was a Kiwi. Just joking.

    1. hey! u must be an aussie!

      joking

      1. Got it in one :)

  2. I would like to have one minutes noise, held for me someday…

    1. Sush Meerkat
      2nd June 2010, 22:10

      When I die I want people to hold a 1 minutes rubbish jokes session.

      1. I want all the F1 engines on earth to make noise me when I die.

  3. is the kiwi bird still used somewhere on their cars nowadays? I have never seen it so i guess not, i kinda like it

    1. They should bring the Kiwi back, definitely have it on the F1 cars, an have it around there HQ. That’d be honoring their heritage.

    2. The McLaren logo is a stylised kiwi bird.

  4. What a beautiful car, and a great tribute!

  5. I think the best way to bring the Kiwi back is to give me a job there.

    1. yea il come too!

  6. To be honest though guys F1 is not massive in NZ. The race results don’t always make sports news on TV and if it does make the news its not leading news. Majority of New Zealanders woouldn’t even be aware that Bruce is a Kiwi.

    To look to where we were late 60’s to where we are now in regards to the sport is a bit of a shame. We were basically the way that Finland was viewed in the sport, having a high number of racers in relation to our relatively now population. In the late 60’s we had 3 very decent drivers in Hulmes, McLaren and Amon for a nation that at the time had around 2 million people. but it has been a decline since then.

    Don’t get me wrong, we have a motorsport scene which is showing decent growth and decent talent but in this part of the world there simply isn’t any money in single seater racing. Marketing potential of NZ’er in Europe – minimal. A lot of them show very great talent at a young age but simply run out of funds.
    Thats why a lot of people have respect for Mark Webber -hes the battler, hes done the hard yards, he had a dream and went for it.

    Its just a shame that this is one of the few sports in the world where money prevails, not natural talent. Does the current F1 grid hold the best 24 drivers in the world? I think not.

    That said, keep an eye on a certain Mitch Evans.

    1. I think you should also be watching Brenden Hartly in the World Series by Renault. And us Aussies should be watching his team mate Daniel Riccardo.

  7. Yea I don’t know about Hartley. Don’t get me wrong, he does have F1 testing experience but the last 2 years he hasn’t really advanced much further. Riccardo is seriously outclassing him and Riccardo is the rookie team mate. I just think he making a habit of not moving any closer to F1 due to being out done by his team mates. Don’t get me wrong, I want the man to succeed.

    1. Your a kiwi to huh? And you have my name hmmm…. thats checky of you :) Yeah, we have lots of talent here but money wise it is just so hard. Hartley won’t make it i feel, i feel he has lost momentum and it will be too hard to regain it. At least we have Dixon to chear on.

  8. A great tribute to a fine driver and engineer, there is a sylised kiwi on all McL cars,as for Mitch Evans, the ammount of money his father is spending on his career he should be progresing, I now the kid has talent but they have ruffled quite a few feathers in NZ.

  9. I don’t know too much about the history of McLaren, but if Bruce was a Kiwi, how did McLaren become british based?

  10. It was bought by Ron Dennis in 1980 and based it in Britain from then onwards. That said however as time progressed more and more of Bruces activities were being based out of Britain.

    However a lot of Brits don’t acknowledge McLaren from New Zealands perspective. I’d like to see what would happen when/if Lotus moved to Malaysia and was therefore known as a Malaysian team.

    1. I thought Bruce McL had been a British based racer, and developed the team here, in the garage in Woking, long before Big Ron came on the scene.
      As a McLaren fan, I have always known of the Kiwi connection, but have taken it as being part of the international makeup of motorsport (especially since McLaren the man and McLaren the team did not just compete in F1 in the past).

  11. Those cars at Brands hatch were wicked to watch up close being a marshal. John grant crashed in one of them at the historic event last monday with a brake failure, took them 2 hours to get him out… lucky he only got a few broken ribs and fractures to his legs, marshals on the track thought he was dead when it happened.

  12. This is magnificent !!!
    I would love an orange touch in a modern day McLaren.
    An 8 liter engine would solve overtaking problems in today´s F1!
    I wish McLaren would race in the U.S. again — this would be good for Ron selling his nice road cars over there.
    Ron and Lou could agree to take their rivalry over to the States. Much more profitable and good value for the money than racing in Habu Dahbi

  13. A fitting tribute to the best driver/engineer ever.I have great memories of Bruce in the lowline Cooper that he put together himself at Levin also some great tussles that he had in the Mini-Cooper with local ace Kerry Grant’s A40 Farina.The M8D still looks & sounds fabulous 40 years on

  14. If you are interested to read a bit about the life of Bruce McLaren , and see what is still actively happening
    to respect his memory, please see the official website in New Zealand
    http://www.bruce-mclaren.com/

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