 The M2B on display at theDonington Grand Prix Collection | |||||||||
| Category | Formula One | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Constructor | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | ||||||||
| Designer | Robin Herd | ||||||||
| Successor | M4B | ||||||||
| Technical specifications | |||||||||
| Chassis | Mallite-aluminium alloymonocoque, withsteel bulkheads | ||||||||
| Suspension (front) | Upperradius arm and lowerwishbone, with rocker-arm operated, inboardcoilover spring/dampers | ||||||||
| Suspension (rear) | Uppertransverse link andradius arm with reversed lower wishbone. Outboardcoilover spring/dampers | ||||||||
| Engine | Ford406 3.0 litreV8,Naturally aspirated,mid-mounted Serenissima M166 3.0 litreV8,Naturally aspirated,mid-mountedMid-engine, rear-wheel-drive | ||||||||
| Transmission | ZF 4- and 5-speedmanualtransaxle | ||||||||
| Power | 300–315 hp (224–235 kW) @ 9,600 rpm[1] 221 lb⋅ft (300 N⋅m)torque | ||||||||
| Weight | 535 kg (1,179 lb) | ||||||||
| Tyres | Firestone | ||||||||
| Competition history | |||||||||
| Notable entrants | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | ||||||||
| Notable drivers |  Bruce McLaren | ||||||||
| Debut | 1966 Monaco Grand Prix | ||||||||
| Last event | 1966 Mexican Grand Prix | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Constructors' Championships | 0 | ||||||||
| Drivers' Championships | 0 | ||||||||
TheMcLaren M2B was theMcLaren team's firstFormula One racing car, used during the1966 season. It was conceived in 1965 and preceded by theM2A development car. Designed byRobin Herd, the innovative but problematicMallite material was used in its construction. The car was powered byFord andSerenissima engines but both lacked power and suffered from reliability issues.
Driven by team founderBruce McLaren, the M2B had a short Grand Prix career, entering six races and starting only four. It scored the team's first point at theBritish Grand Prix and two more points at theUnited States Grand Prix.
Bruce McLaren Motor Racing was founded in 1963;Bruce McLaren was afactory driver for theCooper motor racing team which competed inFormula One, the highest level of internationalsingle-seater competition.[2] For two years the McLaren team had raced in theTasman Series, a competition for single-seaters that ran during the Formula One world championshipoff-season, and in varioussports car races.[3] Bruce McLaren continued to race in Grands Prix (i.e. Formula One championship races) for Cooper, but by 1965 the team's performances were worsening and so he decided to build his own Formula One car to race the following year.[4] Despite being a skilled engineer himself, McLaren enlistedRobin Herd to design the car.[5] Herd was an aerospace engineer who had previously worked at theNational Gas Turbine Establishment (NGTE) where he had been involved with theConcorde project.[6] In September 1965 the M2A development car was completed. Powered by a 4.5 litreOldsmobileV8 engine, it was used to test Herd's design ideas andFirestone's tyres.[7] With McLaren still employed by Cooper, the McLaren team initially denied that they were building a Formula One competitor, claiming that the M2A was purely a tyretest bed.[8]
At the factory inColnbrook, construction started on at least two M2B chassis, whilst a third was possibly started but not completed.[nb 1] By December 1965 the M2A had completed over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of testing and two race engines were ready to be installed in the M2B, Bruce McLaren testing the car atGoodwood Circuit.[5][11] Also that month, the design team was joined by Herd's former NGTE colleagueGordon Coppuck; Coppuck later became chief designer at McLaren.[12] In February 1966 further testing was carried out in California, United States in anticipation of the start of the world championship season in May.[9]
The M2B was amid-enginedrear-wheel drivemonocoque design, monocoques having been popularised byLotus's25 of 1962.[13] Influenced by his aerospace experience, Herd built the chassis withMallite, a material that had originally been designed for internal panelling in aircraft. Mallite is a composite ofbalsa wood bonded between two sheets ofaluminium alloy that is much stiffer than ordinary aluminium alloy, a useful characteristic for a racing car. However, the material proved to be difficult to bend into the curved shapes needed and so, whilst the M2A prototype was made entirely of Mallite except for the steel bulkheads, on the M2B it was utilised only for the inner and upper skins, the remainder being aluminium alloy.[5] Mallite was also complicated to repair after crash damage.[4] Its use did mean though that the chassis was the stiffest then built for an open-cockpit car, with torsional rigidity of nearly 10,000 lb⋅ft (13,600 N⋅m) per degree.[14]Glass-reinforced plastic bodywork covered the nose, cockpit and engine.[15] Fuel was stored in rubber bag tanks situated within the moncoque.[10]
Herd's knowledge of aerodynamics and Bruce McLaren's experience withFord's sports car racing programme combined to spur the team into experimenting with aerodynamic bodywork. The M2A was fitted with a rear wing that produceddownforce – downwards pressure on the car and tyres which allows faster cornering – and reduced lap times by three seconds at a test atZandvoort circuit in November 1965, two and a half years before theBrabham andFerrari teams eventually debuted wings in a Grand Prix.[16][17][18] The team intended to use the wing on the M2B, but the engine problems that occurred prevented this.[17]
The suspension was a conventionalwishbone-based arrangement with inboardcoilover springs anddampers at the front and outboard coilover springs and dampers at the rear.[11][15] Braking was provided byGirlingdiscs within 13 inches (330 mm) diametermagnesium alloy wheels.[15] Thewheelbase measured exactly 8 feet (2,400 mm), and front and reartrack was 4 ft (1,200 mm) and 4 ft 10.75 in (1,492.2 mm), respectively.[19]
For 1966 the Formula One engine capacity limit was doubled to 3.0 litres from the 1.5 litres of the previous five seasons.[20] No team had a suitable engine, not even the F1 teams that built their own engines. McLaren considered and discountedBritish Racing Motors (BRM) that intended to double their V8 into a H16,Maserati V12, enlargedCoventry Climax and Oldsmobile engines before opting for modifying theFord Indy V8 engine. This DOHC engine had won the1965 Indianapolis 500, the premier single-seateroval track race in the United States, withTeam Lotus andJim Clark.
Reduced by third parties in capacity from 4.2 litres to the 3.0 litre limit[21] it was calledFord 406.
This choice by McLaren was partly motivated by the belief that it might bring financial support from Ford, although this never materialised as Ford in 1965 had decided to support theCosworth DFV. In addition, with a turbochargedOffenhauser engine ending the three win streak of Ford at Indy in 1968, an even smaller 2.65 litre version of the Ford Indy V8 was made to allow turbocharging.
ExBMW,Porsche andDaimler-Benz engineer Klaus von Rücker was initially appointed to carry out the conversion of the engine in England.[22] However, progress was slow so the project was transferred to Tra-Co Engineering[23] in California where extensive modifications were made to the internals under the oversight of McLaren's Gary Knutson.[10][22] In its 4.2 litre form the Ford engine produced 470 bhp and McLaren expected the reduced capacity version to produce about 335 bhp.[22] In fact, it produced 300 bhp in a narrowpower band and was further handicapped by its large size and weight; combined with the gearbox it weighed nearly as much as rival team Brabham's entire car.[5][24] In order to allow time to further develop the Ford, McLaren also used aSerenissima M166 3.0 litre V8 engine for some of the races. This engine produced about 260 bhp and required modifications to be made to the monocoque but was at least relatively light and compact.[5][25][26] Four- and five-speedZFtransaxlegearboxes and aBorg & Beckclutch were employed.[15][27]
The M2B was originally intended to be raced in aNew Zealand's traditional racing colour scheme of green, black and silver designed byMichael Turner. However, short on money, the McLaren team made a financial deal with the makers of the filmGrand Prix – a drama that included actual race footage – which involved the car being painted white with a green stripe (edged in silver) in order to represent the film's fictional Japanese "Yamura" team.[28][29]
The Ford-powered M2B made its debut driven by McLaren at the world championship season-openingMonaco Grand Prix. There he qualified 10th on the grid and ran as high as sixth but retired after nine laps due to an oil leak.[8][30][31] After Monaco McLaren decided "it looks as though we're going to have to make some fairly drastic moves in the engine room", and so for the next race inBelgium the Serenissima engine was used. The replacement unit did not provide an immediate solution though, terminally damaging its bearings in practice. With no spare, McLaren was unable to start the race.[32][33] The team missed the next race inFrance,[34] but at theBritish Grand Prix atBrands Hatch the M2B finished sixth to score McLaren's first championship point.[25][35] Another non-start resulted when the Serenissima failed again before theDutch Grand Prix,[36] and the entries for theGerman andItalian Grands Prix were withdrawn in anticipation of the improved Ford engine being readied.[34][37] Thus equipped at theUnited States Grand Prix, McLaren drove to fifth place and two more points.[37][38] At final event inMexico, the rear bodywork was cut away to help prevent overheating but the engine failed during the race.[37][39][40] McLaren had intended forChris Amon, who was already racing sports cars for the team, to race a second car but the engine problems prevented this.[25]
| Year | Team | Engine | Tyres | Drivers | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Points[nb 2] | WCC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Bruce McLaren Motor Racing | Ford406 3.0V8 | F | MON | BEL | FRA | GBR | NED | GER | ITA | USA | MEX | 2 | 9th | |
| Chris Amon | DNA | DNA | DNA | DNA | WD | ||||||||||
| Bruce McLaren | Ret | 5 | Ret | ||||||||||||
| Serenissima M166 3.0V8 | DNS | DNA | 6 | DNS | 1 | 11th | |||||||||
| Refs | [10][34][41][42] | [43] | |||||||||||||
| Key | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour | Result | Colour | Result |
| Gold | Winner | White | Did not start (DNS) |
| Silver | 2nd place | Light blue | Practiced only (PO) |
| Bronze | 3rd place | Friday test driver (TD) - 2003-2007 only | |
| Green | Points finish | Blank | Did not practice (DNP) |
| Blue | Non points finish inc. non classified finish | Injured or ill (inj) | |
| Purple | Did not finish (Ret) | Excluded (EX) | |
| Red | Did not qualify (DNQ) | Did not arrive (DNA) | |
| Black | Disqualified (DSQ) | Withdrew entry before the event (WD) | |
Despite the M2B's lack of success Herd said of the team, "Everyone was ten times more determined to do better the following year."[44] On the design of the car he reflected that, "our emphasis tended to be more on the elegance of the chassis structure rather than on the design of a really quick racing car" and that, "we ... tended to go towards technical ingenuity and bullshit rather than racewinning engineering".[6] Team member and later manager of the organisationTeddy Mayer said, "Our main problems were with the choice of the Ford engine."[45] Bruce McLaren's personal secretary and author Eoin Young concurs.[46] The winners of the 1966 Drivers' and Constructors' championships,Jack Brabham and his eponymous team, used aRepco-developedRepco-Brabham V8 engine based onOldsmobile cylinder block. It produced approximately 290 bhp – less than the Ford – but its light weight and reliability rendered it effective. Despite having used the Oldsmobile in sports racing cars, the McLaren team discounted it. Afterwards, Mayer said, "We considered it, but the kind of modifications which Repco did were well beyond our resources, and I doubt very much if we could have done any more with it than we did with the Indy Ford."[20][45][47]
McLaren's later cars abandoned Mallite in favour of conventional aluminium construction; the Ford and Serenissima engine also saw no further action.[48] For 1967 BRM engines powered theM4B andM5A but it was not until theCosworth DFV became available in 1968 that McLaren scored their first Formula One wins with theM7A.[31] Herd stayed on designing all of these cars until he left forCosworth in 1967.[49] McLaren have since become one of the most successful teams in Formula One.
The M2A was sold on to be used by various private racers in the United Kingdom before being destroyed by fire in 1969.[50] Sources suggest that three M2B chassis were similarly sold on; one is awaiting restoration in the United States and another is currently on display at theDonington Grand Prix Exhibition.[10][50]
