Great F1 teams: McLaren Trivia Quiz

Answer: Australia and New Zealand

The Tasman Series ran from 1964 until 1975 with races held annually in both Australia and New Zealand. The Tasman Sea is the body of water that separates the two countries and was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, whose name was also given to the Australian island state of Tasmania.

Bruce McLaren was a New Zealander who made his grand prix debut with Cooper at the 1958 German Grand Prix, where he finished fifth despite driving an F2 car. He took his first victory at the 1959 US Grand Prix, this time driving a fully fledged F1 car. He raced for the Cooper team until he switched to his own team when it entered F1 for the first time in 1966.

McLaren was killed testing a Can-Am car at Goodwood in 1970. He was just 32.

Answer: Monaco Grand Prix

The Monaco Grand Prix is probably the most iconic race on the F1 calendar, with its tight, twisty and difficult street circuit flanked by glamorous surroundings such as the Monte Carlo Casino and a harbour full of expensive yachts. The race was first held in 1929 and formed part of the first F1 season in 1950. It has been a continuous fixture on the F1 calendar since 1955. The British, Belgian and Italian Grands Prix were all also contested during the inaugural F1 season.

McLaren entered only one car in the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, which was driven by the team's founder, Bruce McLaren. The race provided no insight into the future success waiting for the McLaren team as the car completed only nine laps before breaking down due to an oil leak. However, they were not alone as only four cars were classified at the end of the race, setting a new record for the race with the fewest ever finishers in F1 history.

Answer: Brands Hatch

Bruce McLaren scored one F1 championship point for his sixth place finish as both driver and constructor, although he was two laps down by the end of the race. The race winner, Jack Brabham, was also driving for his own team and went on that year to secure both the drivers' and constructors' titles.

Brands Hatch hosted a total of 14 F1 races between 1964 and 1986. The four listed answer options are the only four motor racing circuits in the UK to have hosted an F1 race, and only three of them have ever hosted the British Grand Prix. Donington Park hosted the 1993 European Grand Prix that was famously won by Ayrton Senna in wet weather conditions. Aintree is probably more famous for its horse racing course that is the home of the Grand National.

Answer: First time F1 cars were fitted with wings

The Ferrari of Chris Amon dominated qualifying for this event after it was fitted with rear wing, taking pole position with a time four seconds faster than anyone else. Unfortunately his race finished early after a stone punctured his radiator. As a result of the various retirements (and a fuel miscalculation for Jackie Stewart) Bruce McLaren took the first F1 race win for his eponymous team, despite having started in sixth position on the grid.

Italian Maria Teresa de Filippis became the first woman to race in F1 at the 1958 Belgian Grand Prix. Renault introduced the first F1 car with a turbocharged engine at the 1977 British Grand Prix. Their driver, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, retired from the race after just 16 laps with (unsurprisingly) a turbo failure! The first Belgian F1 driver to compete in their home race was Johnny Claes in 1950.

Answer: Emerson Fittipaldi

Emerson Fittipaldi had won his first world title in 1972 with the Lotus team, but repeated the feat for McLaren in 1974. Fittipaldi won just three of the season's fifteen races (the same number as rivals Carlos Reutemann and Ronnie Peterson) but took the title by three points thanks to his consistent point scoring throughout the season. Fittipaldi remained with McLaren in 1975, finishing second in the world championship before leaving to compete with his own team (which he set up with his brother Wilson) for the remainder of his career.

McLaren fielded three cars for the 1974 season, 1967 world champion Denny Hulme competed in all the grands prix, while Mike Hailwood, David Hobbs and Jochen Mass shared the third car. Between them they helped McLaren to their first constructors' title, which was then known as the International Cup for F1 Manufacturers.

Answer: Alain Prost

McLaren were the dominant team of the 1984 F1 season so therefore the world championship title battle was between their two drivers, the then double world-champion Niki Lauda and Alain Prost. Between them they won 12 of the 16 races and were separated at the end of the season by only half a point.

The pair continued with McLaren for the 1985 season with Alain Prost successfully reversing the previous year's result, to clinch his first world championship title (he also won it in 1986, 1989 and 1993). Prost won the title with two races to spare while Lauda only managed to finish three races all season and subsequently retired from the sport.

Answer: Ferrari

McLaren, along with their engine partners Honda, absolutely dominated the 1988 F1 season. At the second race of the season their cars qualified three seconds faster than the third-placed Lotus and even by the last race they remained 1.5 seconds faster than the car in third. Ayrton Senna took a total of thirteen pole positions and eight race wins on his way to his first world championship title, with his team-mate Alain Prost securing a further two pole positions and seven race wins for the team.

Gerhard Berger and Ferrari were the only driver-team combination to beat McLaren in 1988. Berger took the victory at the Italian Grand Prix after Senna, the race leader, collided with a backmarker with only two laps to go. The circumstances of the win didn't matter as it was a poignant victory for the Ferrari team on their home track, in front of the Tifosi, and less than a month after the death of legendary team founder, Enzo Ferrari. Berger's team-mate Michele Alboreto then sealed Ferrari's joy by finishing second.

Answer: Mika Hakkinen

McLaren's mid-1990s decline was precipitated by the loss of their long-term engine partnership with Honda at the end of the 1992 season. They were forced to use customer Ford and Peugeot engines for a couple of seasons before switching to Mercedes power for 1995. Although it initially took some time to find success, McLaren-Mercedes won a total of 77 races together between 1997 and 2013.

Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard had one of F1's longest partnerships as team-mates, competing together for McLaren for six seasons between 1996 and 2001. Hakkinen won two world championship titles during this period. His wins were particularly popular with the team as he had a close relationship with team principal, Ron Dennis, following a near fatal accident whilst driving for McLaren in qualifying for the 1995 Australian Grand Prix.

Answer: Spygate

'Spygate' was not the finest moment in McLaren's long and successful F1 history. In 2007 it was discovered that a former Ferrari engineer (Nigel Stepney) had passed secret technical information about their cars to Mike Coughlan, a senior engineer at McLaren. McLaren initially denied having used the information but it later came to light (through a series of e-mails involving Fernando Alonso) that that had not been the case. The team were excluded from the 2007 constructors' world championship (that they would otherwise have won) and fined one hundred million dollars!

The team's drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, were unaffected by the penalties and went on to finish second and third in the drivers' world championship respectively. The result was particularly tight as both finished on 109 points and were beaten to the title by Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen by only a single point.

'Crashgate' was the scandal revolving around Nelson Piquet Jr. deliberately crashing his Renault during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. 'Bountygate' was a NFL scandal involving the New Orleans Saints, while 'Watergate' was the scandal that caused the downfall of US President Richard Nixon and spawned the idea of applying 'gate' nicknames to subsequent scandals and controversies.

Answer: Timo Glock

Lewis Hamilton became only the second British driver to win a world title with McLaren when he triumphed in 2008 (the first was James Hunt in 1976). It was a close run thing though as he needed to finish fifth at the final race of the season in Brazil to secure the title from Ferrari's Felipe Massa. Lewis Hamilton's world championship victory turned out to be McLaren's last triumph in the first fifty years of their existence.

Massa started from pole position and led the majority of a dramatic rain affected race. As Massa crossed the finish line to win the race, Hamilton was in sixth place which meant the title would go to Massa. However, fifth place Timo Glock was struggling to control his Toyota on dry-weather tyres in wet conditions. Hamilton duly overtook him at what seemed like the last possible opportunity and finally clinched the title he had come so close to winning a year earlier in his rookie season.