Amongst the best

Bruce McLaren’s performance in the New Zealand Grand Prix in 1958 was noticed by Australian driver and future three-time World Champion Jack Brabham. That year McLaren also raced in F2 and was entered in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in which F2 and F1 cars competed together. He astounded the motor racing fraternity by being the first F2, and fifth overall, in a field of the best drivers in the world.

McLaren joined the Cooper factory F1 team alongside Jack Brabham in 1959 (picture-above) and won the 1959 United States Grand Prix at the age of 22., becoming the youngest ever GP winner, up to that time. This record would stand for more than four decades until Fernando Alonso’s victory at the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix. Bruce followed that with a win at the Argentine Grand Prix (picture-below), the first race of the 1960 F1 season, and he would finish runner-up that season, to team mate Brabham.