BRUCE’S FIRST
McLaren’s first Formula 1 trophy
Last September, in the middle of our personal guided tour of the magnificent McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England, our host and long-time friend Stephen Donnell — husband of Bruce’s daughter Amanda — paused as we were walking the length of the trophy cabinets. He had stopped in front of cabinets flush, unsurprisingly, with silver and glassware.
“You may want to photograph that,” he said. “I assume you’ll be writing about it next year when the 60th anniversary rolls around.”
Stephen has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the achievements of Bruce McLaren and was pointing out a Grand Prix (GP) winner’s cup, correctly anticipating I’d be writing about this race in a bit over a year’s time, for, on 12 December 1959, on a pancake-flat Floridian airfield barren as a desert and littered with rusting old military aircraft, Bruce McLaren made history. In winning the race, he became the youngest driver ever to win a world championship Formula 1 (F1) GP, a record that would last until 2003. That was but one piece of motor racing history made that day, because Bruce’s teammate and mentor, Jack Brabham, was crowned world champion, and in another surprising
