03/05/2006
NEWS STORY
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Assuming one doesn't count the shambolic 2005 United States Grand Prix (and why would anyone?), this weekend's European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring represents the six-hundredth round of the FIA Formula One World Championship in which a car bearing the McLaren name has entered.
Since Monaco 1966, when New Zealander, Bruce McLaren, drove the Ford-powered M2B, subsequently retiring on the ninth lap with an oil leak, the team has gone on to win 148 Grands Prix, taking 122 pole positions and 128 fastest race laps along the way.
There is also the little matter of 11 drivers' Formula One World Championship titles and 8 constructors' titles, not to mention the company's phenomenal success in Indy Racing (winning the Indy 500 three times), Can-Am, F5000 and even Le Mans.
A team source has told Pitpass that the team will not mark this weekend's milestone event, mainly because there is confusion as to whether Indianapolis 2005 counts, therefore making Imola the Woking outfit's 600th GP.
However, the same source told Pitpass that the team could well use the occasion of the forthcoming Monaco Grand Prix, the 40th Anniversary of that first appearance of a McLaren in an F1 Grand Prix, as the basis for a celebration.
One couldn't pick a better place than Monaco to party, and surely nobody would begrudge McLaren a special result in the principality later this month.
Ironically, the British Grand Prix, the race that follows Monaco, marks Renault's 200th F1 Grand Prix, while the French Grand Prix, is the 750th FIA Formula One Grand Prix, assuming that one doesn't count the 11 Indianapolis 500 races held between 1950 and 1960, which counted towards the world championship, but rarely featured F1 drivers.