We have qualified on pole by less than a tenth of a second on 31 occasions, with our closest being at the 2006 Italian Grand Prix, where Kimi Räikkönen bested Michael Schumacher to top spot by 0.002s.

2006 is, however, one of those years where qualifying was something of a false premise, as everyone was qualifying with a variable amount of race fuel. It was impossible to know how much fuel each driver had left when they made their first pit-stop – but we can say that Kimi and team-mate Pedro de la Rosa were the first drivers to pit, with Schumacher going two laps deeper.

Our closest-run low-fuel qualifying pole is also the closest of the 63 McLaren 1-2 qualifying performances, with Mika Häkkinen out-qualifying David Coulthard by 0.022s at Imola in 1999. Mika swept the first five poles of 1999, though his run extended to seven consecutive P1s, including the final two rounds of 1998. Sadly, for the Flying Finn, things in the race didn’t go his way, as he crashed out of the lead in the early stages.

…But it isn’t always about the size of the margin. Our biggest pole position gap is the vast 1.73s Ayrton Senna had over team-mate Alain Prost at Suzuka in 1989. But such was the superiority of the MP4/5 that year (15 from 16 poles, 10 victories), Prost was aware no one was likely to out-qualify the McLarens, and thus he concentrated his efforts on setting up his car for race performance, rather than qualifying pace. He had better straight-line speed, whilst Senna had better cornering.

What followed in the grand prix was a demonstration of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object… and Sandro Nannini winning for Benetton.

In the 1969 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Bruce came home just 0.19s behind Jackie Stewart’s Matra-Cosworth. That’s an incredibly fine margin to lose a race by – especially given that Bruce didn’t even get a trophy because he finished fourth.

The official two-decimal timekeeping has Stewart winning, Jochen Rindt coming home second 0.08s down and Jean-Pierre Beltoise third, 0.17s behind and a full two-hundredths ahead of Bruce’s M7C.

The slipstreaming characteristics of the cars in this era made close results like this much more common than they are today: wings were either non-existent or rudimentary, and, while not all Cosworth DFVs were created equal, they were close enough for no one to have enough of a horsepower advantage to break the tow. On circuits with long straights, the lead tended to change every lap, if not every corner, with cars closing up while drafting. At Monza, this finished with a drag race out of Parabolica and a lunge for the line.

The ’92 race at Monaco is a rare example of the gap at the chequered flag being a smaller margin than the advantage of the pole position car in qualifying. Our narrowest-ever victory involved a similar reversal, with Ayrton Senna crossing the line a scant 0.215s ahead of Williams’ Nigel Mansell.

Mansell had taken pole position with Senna P3. Ayrton took P2 at the start but could do nothing about Mansell, who disappeared off into the distance… until a loose wheel nut required him to pit on lap 70 of the 78. He came out five seconds behind Senna and closed the gap rapidly – but Monaco hasn’t changed, and he wasn’t getting past Senna unless Senna made a mistake. And, despite having little grip left in tyres fitted for the full race distance, Senna didn’t make that mistake.

Another race in which the winning margin was smaller than the qualifying margin was also the closest of our 48 1-2 finishes, with Niki Lauda beating Alain Prost by 0.232s at the 1985 Dutch Grand Prix.

It was Niki’s 25th and final F1 victory and the archetypal Lauda win. The Austrian – who had already announced his retirement – qualified P10 but scrapped his way to the front, passing Prost along the way. This wasn’t a formation finish either but a flat-out fight over the final dozen laps. This was in spite of us needing the points to catch Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship and Prost being tied with Michele Alboreto at the top of the Drivers’ Championship, with Niki out of contention. Team orders might have been helpful – but that is not how we rolled.

On the other hand, the biggest margin in a McLaren 1-2 finish was our very first 1-2 finish. Denny Hulme won the 1968 Canadian Grand Prix, with Bruce a lap behind in second place - but also a lap ahead of everyone else. Don’t believe the hype: F1 is much more competitive in the present era than in the ‘golden age.’

Not a McLaren victory but one for McLaren: Bruce McLaren.

A month after racing in McLaren Racing’s official Formula 1 Grand Prix debut, in the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, Bruce contested the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Driving a Ford GT40 in a team with fellow Kiwi Chris Amon, he won by 20m after 360 laps and 4,846km in a Ford 1-2-3, after Ford attempted to arrange a dead heat (you may have seen the film, Ford v Ferrari).

McLaren and Amon tied with Ken Miles-Denny Hulme, but the rules stated that in the event of a tie, the car that had travelled the furthest would be declared the winner… and the McLaren/Amon car had begun the race further back (to the tune of 20m).