McLAREN's hairiest moments
We join F1 in raising awareness of men's health issues by celebrating our famous fluff
While the beard has become one of modern masculinity’s style staples, its closest sibling, the moustache, has never quite cultivated the same favour.
That’s somewhat understandable: the beard has an iconic lineage (if it’s good enough for William Shakespeare and Santa Claus, who are we to argue?) but moustachioed icons are genuinely hard to find.
In fact, off the top of our heads, we can only think of, er, Magnum PI, Lando Calrissian and actor Henry Cavill, who totally rocked a ’tache in Mission: Impossible – Fallout (although less so in Justice League, but that’s another story).
However, thanks to the actions of our friends at Movember, who are officially partnering with Formula 1 at the Mexican Grand Prix to raise awareness of men’s health issues (and we urge you all to take care of yourselves and check the useful information on their site) all of us at McLaren are hopeful that the moustache will no longer remain the stigmatised little brother to the mighty beard.
Of course, it helps that some of McLaren’s greatest names have never been frightened of a little facial hair.
And, to celebrate the fact, we’ve assembled the following gallery of fabulous facial furniture:
Emerson Fittipaldi
We can neither confirm nor deny the recent claims in an episode of McLaren’s Tooned TV series that Emerson Fittipaldi is, in fact, a werewolf (although all stories in Tooned must be considered official McLaren canon and not part of a McLaren Expanded Universe). Whether you believe it or not, you can’t deny that the Brazilian champ had a unique way with the facial fuzz for pretty much the whole of his career.
Denny Hulme
The Bear, as he was nicknamed, would’ve looked more at home as a character on a Lord Of The Rings movie than a bona fide world champion grand prix driver. Not that Denny cared, mind; he had little time for convention in the F1 world. And while those lambchop sideburns weren’t the most aerodynamic of additions, they didn’t seem to slow our Kiwi friend down all that much…
Ray Grant
F1 legend Ray, ironically known as ‘Kojak’ (for all the wrong reasons), knew that the 1970s was the best decade in which to experiment tonsorially. Not only did Kojak rock a ‘tache, but was also the only man in the F1 pit-lane capable of pulling off the style with such inimitable aplomb…
John Watson
Wattie was another idiosyncratic racer unbothered by the response of those around him. It’s what made him such a straight-talking commentator and a fearless competitor on track. Wattie never drove for McLaren with the full fuzz, mind; he’d made a deal with his boss Roger Penske that he’d ditch the beard after winning his first F1 race, which he duly did in 1976 at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Keke Rosberg
Alongside Nigel Mansell, Keke briefly formed a moustache ‘super team’ at Williams in 1985, but opted to keep the ‘viikset’ (Finnish for ’tache) when he joined McLaren a year later. Mated to his gold-rimmed Ray-Ban Aviators and ever-present cigarette, Keke looked every inch the archetypal ‘bad cop’.
Nigel Mansell
Formula 1’s most iconic moustachioed racer? Indubitably. Allied to his flat cap, ‘our Nige’ made the ’tache his own when he adopted it in his youth. Undeterred by disappointment, it climbed the single-seater rungs with him, and was only briefly dismissed in 1988, before making a sensational comeback later that year. Nige without a tache? Frankly unthinkable.
Lewis Hamilton
An early F1 adopter of the ‘chin strap’ back in 2011, Britain’s finest has been a keen beard adopter, with his hirsute pursuits varying from year to year, and even from race to race. Regardless of the length, though, it’s always been immaculately groomed.
Jenson Button
When he wasn’t rocking the designer stubble, Jenson was actually an enthusiastic Movember contributor in his day (check out this shot of him at the Abu Dhabi GP in 2011), Jenson always cultivated the ‘Spitfire ace’ look. Annoyingly, like Henry Cavill in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, he also looked like he could carry it off…
Kevin Magnussen
The great Dane is fond of the ol’ designer stubble, but chose never to run a definitive set-up during his time at McLaren. Instead, he opted to switch from the baby-faced clean-shaven look to craggy Viking from race to race. Seems like he’s now settled on ‘permanent Viking’ now he’s at Haas.
Fernando Alonso
Like Kev, facial hair seems to fall in and out of favour with our Spaniard. That said, his second stint at McLaren has seen him largely indulge in the facial furniture, never more prevalent than when we announced his official comeback, and Nando arrived at the MTC in a slick, grey suit and a luxuriant beard and bouffant. Nice!
