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Sir Jackie Stewart on Bruce McLAREN: “He was one of the nicest men I’ve ever known”

The man behind team McLaren: What was Bruce like away from the track?

Sir Jackie Stewart doesn’t skip a beat, grasping the opportunity to speak about his late friend and racing rival, Bruce McLaren. "A wonderful man,” he begins. Stewart and his wife, Helen, would often stay with Bruce and his wife, Patty, at their home in England. Even though they never drove for the same team, their relationship stretched beyond the track.

On 30 August, Bruce would have celebrated his 86th birthday. And in three days, the team he founded will celebrate its 60th anniversary. Our founder tragically died aged 32 whilst testing the McLaren M8D at Goodwood in 1970, 53 years ago.

So few of us are fortunate enough to have lived during Bruce McLaren’s era, and even fewer ever experienced his unique genius in person.

His achievements as a racing driver, inventor, engineer and team leader are well-documented, but what was our founder like as a person? Three-time Formula 1 World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart is among the few who can answer that question, referring to Bruce as a “very good friend.”

“Bruce was one of the nicest men I’ve ever known,” waxed Sir Jackie. “He was a beautiful man, but he was very quiet – he dressed well, spoke beautifully, and he carried the sport very well. He had perfect manners and was a very modest, good-looking man.

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Bruce McLaren (L) and Sir Jackie Stewart (C) on the podium at the 1969 Spanish Grand Prix

“He was a soft man with a great mind and a great amount of talent. He is someone that motorsport should be very proud of. There was a period in his career when he and Denny Hulme, also from New Zealand, became a fantastic combination for McLaren. It looked like they were trying to take over the world at one time… And they did.

“He was a very smooth driver and somebody that I admired very much. He was somebody that I got to know very well. I was privileged to call him a friend. Often before races, my wife and I used to stay in his apartment outside London. We didn't have much money in those days, so we would stay with the McLaren's.”

Stewart is widely recognised as one of Formula 1’s greatest-ever drivers, winning 27 races and three F1 World Championships between 1965 and 1973. All three of those titles were taken during six highly successful seasons with the Tyrrell Racing Organisation, a stint that was launched on the back of a test with Bruce McLaren.

Ken Tyrrell signed Stewart following a test in a Formula Three Cooper T72-BMC shared with Bruce at Goodwood in 1964, where Stewart famously bettered the New Zealander’s times. Bruce returned to the track and responded with a faster time, but Stewart was once again able to beat him, impressing Tyrrell and landing him what would become a career-defining seat in Ken’s F3 team.

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Bruce McLaren racing against Sir Jackie Stewart at the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix

This was far from his only brush with Bruce – although the friends never raced on the same team, Stewart did nearly drive for our team. Like Bruce, Stewart was a multi-series racer, and in addition to Formula 1, he competed in the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Can-Am.

It was in the latter where he almost became a McLaren driver. Stewart won two races with Carl Haas Racing in 1971 but was left unable to halt our dominance in the championship. And as the adage goes, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’

However, the move would never come to pass as Stewart’s regular trips across the Atlantic for races and media commitments – reportedly 86 trips in 1971 alone - caught up with him.

“The McLaren was the car to drive at the time,” he recalls. “I had been driving at Carl Haas Racing in Can-Am, and it really wasn’t as good as the McLaren. I won the odd race, but McLaren beat us, and Bruce asked if I’d be interested in driving, to which I said: ‘Absolutely’.

“Bruce was a soft man with a great mind and a great amount of talent. He is someone that motorsport should be very proud of”

Sir Jackie Stewart

Three-time Formula 1 World Champion

“It was a big deal for me. I had agreed to a contract, but I had mononucleosis, which was caused by the number of times I crossed the Atlantic. I had to go into hospital and missed racing events so that I could get my health back, which meant stepping away from the McLaren programme that I would have loved to have been a part of.

“I did test the car in Goodwood. It was a wonderful car, but I spun it a few times for no good reason. I didn’t know how I spun it, but I made mistakes that I never had before. As it turns out, it was the internal bleeding from my illness that caused it.”

Sir Jackie Stewart is Formula 1’s oldest living race winner and the only driver left from the 60’s to have won a World Championship. Bruce is one of several tragic losses Stewart lived through during his racing career, at a time when the sport’s safety standards were virtually non-existent.

Stewart survived a near-death experience of his own following a terrifying crash at the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix, but so many of his fellow drivers weren’t so lucky. Between 1960 and 1980, 26 drivers died at an FIA World Championship event or while driving a Formula 1 car at another event.  

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Sir Jackie Stewart arrives at the 2023 British Grand Prix

Stewart, among others, played a role in helping to improve safety standards drastically to what they are today. For all of the Scot’s on-track success, his campaigning off it is his greatest legacy. Full-face helmets, seatbelts, safety barriers, larger run-off areas, and the Grand Prix medical unit are among the changes he pushed for and saw successfully implemented.

“Bruce’s death wouldn't happen today because the racetracks are safer,” Stewart explains. “It certainly was a terrible loss to the sport, and I personally was very affected by it.

“I was in Paris and had come out of a meeting. A friend came rushing towards me and said: ‘I've got some very bad news.’ We were on the sidewalk in Paris, and he told me: "Bruce McLaren's just been killed at Goodwood." I couldn't understand how that could have happened. It was a tremendous loss.”

Our first Formula 1 Grand Prix victory came at the hands of Bruce in the 1968 Belgian Grand Prix, the Kiwi winning after race leader Stewart had been forced into the pits for more fuel on the penultimate lap following a pre-race team miscalculation.

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Sir Jackie Stewart (L) in conversation with Bruce McLaren (R) at the 1967 German Grand Prix

There have been a further 182 F1 victories since that day, as well as 12 Drivers’ and eight Constructor’s World Championships, making us one of the most successful Formula 1 teams in history and ensuring Bruce’s legacy lives on.

We’re also the only team to have achieved motorsport’s Triple Crown in the last 100 years, having won all three disciplines: the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix.

Stewart believes that Bruce would be proud of what his team has achieved.

“When Bruce McLaren came in, he decided it would be a great thing to not only be a racing driver, but a constructor as well,” Stewart says. “He had some of the best people with him. Tyler Alexander, for example, who is sadly no longer with us. There are a bunch of them who, along with Bruce, became artists in the field of technology and motor racing.

“Bruce was a good driver, but he was an even better creator of cars. He started something that I don't think anybody in motor racing, in the history of the sport, has done. You could maybe say that [Ettore] Bugatti might be up there, but he wasn't a racing driver to the same level as Bruce McLaren was. Bruce created a brand that still lives on today, and it is much larger than he could have ever imagined.

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Sir Jackie Stewart chasing down Bruce McLaren at the 1968 Italian Grand Prix

“The McLaren factory is immaculate and as exciting as ever to visit, and the McLaren brand is still strong. Bruce would be very proud of that. I don't think he could ever have dreamed that it would reach the level that it has.

“I do think Bruce McLaren would be very proud. I hope he's looking down on us all to see how strong McLaren has become over the years – still making wonderful road cars and still competitive. McLaren is a brand that will last forever, and the man who created it was one of the most modest men I've ever known.”

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