Bruce McLaren Quotes
100 Bruce McLaren Quotes
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[After an accident] You jump out fairly quickly in case the thing is going to catch fire. That’s an automatic reaction, or ought to be automatic.
Bruce McLaren
[On the death of team mate Timmy Mayer] The news that he had died instantly was a terrible shock to all of us, but who is to say that he had not seen more, done more and learned more in his few years than many people do in a lifetime? To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.
Bruce McLaren
[On the creation of the special McLaren ‘nostrils’] I was first angry that the filler door hadn't been properly closed but then I began to wonder why it wasn't being pressed down by the airflow. The only answer was that there had to be a source of higher pressure air under it than over it.
Bruce McLaren
I made a fairly careful start in the race, getting away eight or tenth. After the first couple of laps I settle down to our team instructions. Our cars could out-accelerate, out-brake, and out-corner everything else – including the Ferraris. On the straight we were 20mph faster than anyone else.
Bruce McLaren
Daytona proved that Ford had solved their engine and transmission problems.
Bruce McLaren
It surprised me to see how competitive the GTs felt. It was obvious that the Shelby team had done a great deal of work on the cars. The handling, braking, and acceleration were greatly improved by the bigger tires and wider rims. Some re-ducting around the front end improved both the brake and engine cooling. The Achilles’ heel, the gearbox, while still not exactly a delight to use, was at least reliable with a Ford-made ring and pinion.
Bruce McLaren
Ken Miles and I certainly appreciated the fact that our car had a roof when the downpour hit. The water was 6 inches deep and flowing in places, and the driving conditions were some of the worst I’ve ever seen. When the windscreen wiper packed up, we were flying blind and wishing that we were wet and able to see rather than snug and dry and poking along into opaque swimming gloom. I tried to revive the wiper out on course but it was a hopeless manoeuvre in the pouring rain. I finally pitted and let the crew fix the problem.
Bruce McLaren
[In 1967 with Mario Andretti] After half a dozen laps and a few changes to spoilers, roll bars, and tyre pressures, I was reasonably happy with the car. When Mario arrived he was also pleased with the setup.
Bruce McLaren
Gearboxes were the Ford jinx last year, so this year the two big cars were fitted with special four-speed monsters made in the USA. And once again they broke.
Bruce McLaren
This was my first race with the Shelby setup and it was certainly different from most of the other teams that I have come across. As I see it, it’s a team of chiefs that work like Indians. The men doing the job have all of the knowledge, experience, intelligence and enthusiasm you could ever hope for. Mention anything you like and they know what you are talking about. If you want something special to try, they get it set up, and quickly. They have a good man in Chief Engineer Phil Remington and they even have a couple of New Zealanders, John Ohlsen and Ron Butler, working on the team. Shelby has time to just stand back, do his thinking and let the crew get on with it.
Bruce McLaren
[‘Who’s supposed to win?’] I don’t know, but I’m not going to lose.
Bruce McLaren
I’m getting quite fond of the Ford GT now. It’s a really pleasant car for long distance racing. It’s comfortable to drive, quiet inside, and cool inside, which helps reduce driver fatigue.
Bruce McLaren
We finished third behind two Ferraris, and that wasn’t all bad considering.
Bruce McLaren
The Ferraris and Fords were equal in power. Our big disadvantage was that our cars were heavier and that, at the moment, we only have four-speed gearboxes to combat Ferrari’s five-speed unit.
Bruce McLaren
During the first two hours, Chris Amon and I enjoyed some real motor racing in the 7-liter Ford GTs. Chris was first away at the start but I cruised by as we pulled on to the Mulsanne straight. We both had to resist the temptation to make those electrifying opening laps a carve-it-up sprint.
Bruce McLaren
This is the first car I’ve driven that made Le Mans feel like the short circuit at Brands Hatch.
Bruce McLaren
That new Lotus is a little sparkler, built right down to weight and right up on power… [It’s] a fireball.
Bruce McLaren
We started running a prototype car in March. It was really one of last year’s cars with lower profile tires and the body cut down. Then we tried a cast-iron 427 engine in it, a litre bigger than the engine we ran last year… The old chassis was cut in half and the engine became the rear of the car with the rear suspension hanging off a subframe. With this mobile test rig we tried a dry-sump setup, wings, new brakes, and all the while the new MSA was taking shape on the drawing board.
Bruce McLaren
[On an engine making 560lb-ft of torque and 624bhp at 6500rpm] Jesus Christ, there’s never been anything like this! There’s no way we can use all this horsepower.
Bruce McLaren
Hanging the engine off the back of the monocoque was pretty much my idea. Gordon Coppuck and I worked out the rear bulkhead, the suspension detail was a group effort, the front half of the chassis was largely Jo’s work, and I worked out the body shape and general layout with Jim Clark of Specialized Mouldings.
Bruce McLaren
We’re having to feather-foot everywhere.
Bruce McLaren
[On Jack Brabham arranging for Bruce McLaren to make his UK debut in a Formula 2 Cooper in the Aintree ‘200’ race and introducing him to John Cooper himself] Where’s my car? [‘Your car? In that pipe rack I reckon, Boy’ – John Cooper (Suggesting that if he wanted his car, he would have to set about building it first)]
Bruce McLaren
To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one’s ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.
Bruce McLaren
[In 1966] I expected a few more cars to finish….
Bruce McLaren
My first actual race was on the beach, at a place called Muriwai in New Zealand. I think I was more excited than I’d ever been before in my life.
Bruce McLaren
[On his first race] I was about sixteen and I remember being wildly excited, and in fact I won it. But it was a handicap race so that in my little Austin 7 I had a bit of a head start on everyone else. And in fact they just didn’t catch up. It was probably the smallest, shortest, slowest race I’d ever win. But I was certainly excited by it.
Bruce McLaren
[On England in 1958] Everything over here is on the fiddle.
Bruce McLaren
You’ve got to get up pretty early to be ahead of some people.
Bruce McLaren
The last few practice sessions the Ferrari’s have got really cagey.
Bruce McLaren
The track was absolutely covered in oil and rubber…
Bruce McLaren
There was more lock to lock motoring with wheels locked and cat sliding in all sorts of unpredictable directions than I’ve ever seen before… It was just quite fantastic…
Bruce McLaren
Generally speaking, you can analyse all your failures and breakages after that fact. And there will always be a reason for them. So the luck thing - really there’s no such thing as good luck. It’s good preparation and hard work. But in actual fact you get runs of good luck and bad luck. While you are using basically the same people, the same techniques, the same knowledge, and the same amount of effort, some months you can’t go wrong and other months you can’t go right.
Bruce McLaren
There’s no doubt about the imponderable of luck. Yet, psychologically speaking, I’ve been more scared in an airplane during a storm than I have been in a racing car. There is no average reason for a driver being a good driver, just as there is no average reason for a person getting involved in racing
Bruce McLaren
[On auto racing being a glamorous sport – a troupe of hard man accompanied by their sexy women] Most of it is plain bullsh*t. There’s no glamour in working 12 hours a day trying to keep ahead of someone with the genius of Colin Chapman, or people with the guts and working ability of Jack Brabham and John Surtees, no glamour whatsoever.
Bruce McLaren
[On motor sports being a glamorous sport] If you asked any of the mechanics and engineers, who are working from early in the morning until 11 o’clock seven days a week, and have been for 10 years, they’d tell you there is no glamour in it for them
Bruce McLaren
[On glamour in motor sports being a driver and car constructor] There can be glamour in it if you want it, but if you start taking time off to get involved in glamour you’re not going to be a car constructor or a driver for very long.
Bruce McLaren
I personally have absolutely nothing to do with the glamour. And 10 years ago there was no glamour in it for me either: I worked on my own car.
Bruce McLaren
[On the cost to make a Formula 1 car] Enormous amounts of money.
Bruce McLaren
[On making Forumula 1 cars] I would imagine that we do it as efficiently as anyone, apart from Brabham…
Bruce McLaren
[‘This is a very dangerous sport?’] Yes. [‘A very expensive sport?’] Yes.
Bruce McLaren
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