As our BMW Feature Month comes to an end, I have been asked to give my personal reflections on the golden years of the McLaren F1 GTR. Grab yourself a coffee….it’s a long one!

With the aid of Rod's images from his recent visit to Rahal Letterman and John Brooks extensive collection, I'll attempt to cover the two seasons in which the short-tail GTR changed the face of GT racing.
 

It may not have been part of the original McLaren F1 project, but the story of the McLaren F1 GTR was a dream come true for McLaren Cars back in the mid-nineties.
 

The original Road going McLaren F1 was the brainchild of ex Brabham and McLaren Formula One genius, Gordon Murray. The McLaren F1 was conceived in a departure lounge at Nice Airport in 1988. Gordon approached his boss, Ron Dennis, with a proposal for a 3-seater supercar with no compromises. 

The original F1 concept proposed a Honda power plant, but no agreement was reached and Gordon approached his old colleague (from Brabham BMW days), Paul Rosche and a deal between McLaren and BMW was brokered. BMW Motorsport produced the eventual bespoke engine. 6.1 Litre, producing 627 hp (468 kW; 636 PS). 0-60: 3.2 sec

McLaren never intended to race the F1. Two factors would change their mind. The new ‘BPR’ GT Championship was gaining exposure and two F1 owners, Ray Bellm and Thomas Bscher lobbied McLaren to produce a race version. Ron Dennis eventually approved the project, but on the understanding that it would have to be funded by sales of the then, five race chassis.
 
The economic climate had also taken a turn for the worst in the early 90’s. A number of proposed supercars including the Yamaha OX99-11 had been scrapped and orders for the F1 were low, making the project less viable than originally planned. McLaren didn’t know it at the time, but producing the GTR would help the F1 project financially with all the spare parts and equipment the customer teams would order.
 

Gordon Murray and his No2, Barry Lett started work on the GTR just after the first production car had been delivered. Externally, the car featured revised aerodynamics with side skirts, rear wing and deeper, more vertical front bumper with revised air intakes and splitter. These parts would later be offered to road car owners as the ‘High Downforce Kit’.

The 6.1 V12 BMW engine was also revised. While the production car produced 627bhp, the race car unit would produce around 640 before the BPR regulated air restrictors were fitted, robbing the engine of up to 100bhp. TAG Electronics revised the engine mapping and the result was a very tough engine.

Paul Rosche claimed one engine could last all season. Sadly, the Achilles heel was the gearbox. Developed from the original roadcar, with new internals, a number of teams had issues during the 1995 season.
 

Two other individuals were instrumental were project leader Jeff Hazell who has vast experience in motorsport (he is head of Krohn Racing) and James Robinson, a highly respected Grand Prix Engineer who had worked with Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger.
 

The F1 GTR made its debut in January 1995 at a press event at McLaren Cars. The Orange and Silver car mixed the colours from the original F1 launch car with the historic Papaya Orange, associated the McLaren’s Can-Am exploits in the 60’s and 70’s. This chassis, ‘01R’ would undertake most of the testing and development before it made history at Le Mans.
 

Meanwhile, I had recently joined the TAG McLaren group, off of the back of working for Arena International. Mike Earle’s outfit had completed a number of projects for Ron Dennis in the past and one of these was for me to design the Gulf and West liveries for two of McLaren’s customers teams.

At this point, the race car was still a secret. The F1 is a classical shape, but has unique form along the side with the air outlet in the door. The lines are angled upwards which makes logo placement a problem.  Luckily, the Gulf Livery was iconic and we were able to place the Gulf logo on the rear (non luggage) panels away from these creases.

Gulf had redesigned its corporate identity in recent years and powder blue and Orange had given way to Dark Blue and Silver with an Orange keyline. This worked very well on the F1 with its central air intake and the design was approved immediately by Gulf Ooils and GTC Motorsport.

Next up was the West livery for Thomas Bscher and David Price Racing. West had also updated their corporate design, so this is one of the primary reasons the car has less red than the West Zakspeed F1 car. At one point we had pin stripes all over the car, but we decided it would be a pain to apply!  Using the body lines again we actually created a link between the two liveries, like a corporate identity….I do remember Mr Bellm wasn’t that impressed at the time!
 

The GTR made its race debut, at the 4 hours of Jerez in Spain, first round of the 1995 BPR Series. It had been a rush to get the cars built up and the teams acquainted with these new hi-tech machines. 

GTC appeared with two Gulf sponsored McLarens for Ray Bellm and L’Oreal CEO, Lindsay Owen-Jones with respective co-drivers Maurizio Sala and Pierre-Henri Raphanel. Dave Price Racing were initially running just one GTR, in West colours for Thomas Bscher and John Nielsen.
 

The cars were immediately on the pace, quickest in practice qualifying and the race, with Bellm and Sala taking the win from Porsche. 
 

With McLaren Cars working around the clock, a fourth chassis appeared at the next round in Paul Ricard, France for BBA Competition. The Bellm/Sala combination (above)  took another win in front of the Larbre Porsche which would provide stiff competition all season long. McLaren also finished third, fifth and seventh. Not a bad start.
 
The home of the Tifosi, Monza, played host to round Three of the BPR Series and the Italians were, initially, not disappointed. The Club Italia Ferrari F40 took pole position and threatened the dominance of McLaren. However John Nielsen was next to the Ferrari in the front row.

This race saw the West car re-livered in Davidoff colours. This was an early example of a full colour body wrap. Unlike previous rounds, the Gulf GTC cars failed to finish and it was left to the DPR Davidoff car to take the flag with John celebrating by doing donuts.
 

Another race in Spain, at Jarama, followed the Italian event. This time, two additional McLaren F1 GTR chassis appeared. JacadiGRT entered a GTR for Olivier Grouillard and Fabien Giroix while David Price Racing added a second car to its stable under the name ‘Mach One Racing’, owned by Moody Fayed and sponsored by Harrods, the family shop!

The car looked stunning in Yellow and Green (I can say that, I didn’t design that one!).
 
The event was a disaster for GTC. Owen-Jones had rolled the F1 during testing and the Bellm/Sala car received a jump-start penalty at the beginning of the race.  McLaren were coming under increasing pressure from Ferrari and Porsche. Despite this, the Bellm/Sala car still won, beating the West car of Bscher/Nielsen. The new Harrods McLaren finished 4th.
 

Home soil for BMW for the next round of the BPR Championship with a 4 hours at the Nurburgring. Despite an all-Ferrari front row, the final results would see McLaren fill the first five positions with all five cars entered. Bellm and Sala took victory again from the Jacardi GRT team and the second Gulf car.
 
The Donington round of the BPR series saw many of McLaren’s employees take the trip up North to see the GTR’s race. The West McLaren of Bscher and Nielsen would take the win and signal a change of fortunes for the David Price Run car.

The No2 Gulf car would follow Bscher home, ahead of Justin Bell and Andy Wallace (above) in the Harrods McLaren.
 
A good start to the McLaren F1 GTR Programme, but ‘THE RACE’ was now upon us.
 

As soon as McLaren announced a GT race car programme, it was obvious Le Mans needed to be part of the programme. What better way to showcase the ultimate supercar than the Vingt Quatre Heures du Mans, particularly at a time when the classes allowed cars based on production units to be raced…if you could call the McLaren F1 a production car.
 
The regular teams had every intention of running and competed in pre-qualifying in April to earn a place on the grid. McLaren had entered their test chassis in pre-qualifying and was first reserve until being granted a place when other entrants pulled out.
 

Motokazu Sayama was successful in Japan running clinics and dental surgeries. Sayama funded an extra entry, using the original tired test chassis to be run by Paul Lanzante, a friend of Gordon Murray.

Lanzante was already running a Porsche in the BPR championship. Sayama had a Mercedes SL in Black with Graphite lower panels and decided this was the colour combination he wanted for the race car. With these colours and his Tokyo Ueno Clinic branding, it didn’t take long to design a livery.!
 
As part of the deal, successful Japanese racer, Masanori Sekiya joined JJ Lehto and Yannick Dalmas in the now Black and Graphite car.
 

Sekiya was a big Le Mans fan, having competed eight times before, including a 2nd in 1992, and getting married in Le Mans Town Hall!
 
Internally, not too much was expected of the car as it was the first chassis, had a hard life and only recently updated for the event….how wrong we were.
 

DPR had a fantastic line up in the Harrods car. Father and Son, Derek and Justin Bell joined regular Andy Wallace. In the ‘WEST FM’ car the regular drivers were joined by ex McLaren F1 driver, Jochen Mass. The car was running WEST FM graphics to get around tobacco advertising rules in France.
 

GTC Gulf also had a strong line up. The lead car of Ray Bellm and Sala was joined by Formula 1 and Champ Car driver, Mark Blundell, while the Owen-Jones/Raphanel car welcomed another F1 pilot, Philippe Alliot. Jacadi GRT and BBA also entered. A total of seven McLaren F1 GTR’s.
 
BMW had also increased their support. At the last minute I was busy cutting ‘BMW Power V12’ and ‘Powered by BMW’ stickers for each of the cars. I assume when these stickers were delivered, they were stapled to a financial incentive.

As usual in the 90’s, the quick but fragile WR Peugeots lead from the start, but quickly fell back, swallowed up by Courage and McLarens. The Courage lead for a while, but the McLarens were on their tail, despite being in the lower GT class.

The two DPR McLarens would lead in the early hours thanks to a good driver change strategy and aggressive pace.
 
Over at Gulf, the ‘lead’ car was behind the two DPR machines before Ray Bellm had an accident in the Porsche curves, dropping him out of contention. The other GTC car also had an accident. It wasn’t the race Gulf had hoped for.

More accidents followed as rain continued to fall. One of the WR Peugeots crashed and rolled on the Mulsanne. The driver, Patrick Gonin was very lucky. A Safety car was called which allowed the drivers to take a breather and the gearboxes of the McLaren to cool down.
 

As they raced into the night, the West FM McLaren had to surrender its lead to the sister car when those gearbox and clutch reliability gremlins crept in. The wiper motor had also packed up, so they were having to drive in the night in the rain with little visibility. The Harrods car would lead past midnight and into the early hours.
 

As the rain fell, JJ Lehto was in the Ueno Clinic car. It had been an uneventful race for them up to this point. The team had been cautious in their approach, mindful of the age of the car and also a new team, which hadn’t had time to gel.

All that changed with JJ, otherwise known as Jyrki Jarvilehto, at the wheel. He put in some truly amazing laps through the night, everyone was stunned, in modern day terms, he did a ‘McNish’!

The gradually moved up the leaderboard, lapping significantly quicker (sometimes 15 seconds a lap) than any other car including the leader, Justin Bell in the Harrods McLaren. Justin was having a tough time with similar gearbox issues to the West car earlier in the event.

At the half way mark, the Harrods McLaren led overall from the Ueno Clinic Car.

The Courage of Mario Andretti, Eric Hellary and Bob Wollek was 3rd. McLaren’s were also 4th, 5th and 9th.

The rain had helped McLaren, if I’m being honest. The gearbox was an on-going issue, which had resulted in a re-design prior to Le Mans. I think everyone went with the tougher box, but it was still an issue. The rain reduced the massive load from the 600+bhp engine and made the difference.

As dawn broke, JJ took the lead for a few hours, having been over a lap down earlier in the night. It was an amazing performance by the Fin. Even last weekend, while chatting to someone at Petit, the subject of JJ and Le Mans 1995 cropped up. Legendary stuff.

With different pit stop strategies, Harrods would re-take the lead, but those gearbox gremlins would reappear and later delayed the car in the pits.

Suddenly McLaren personnel realized that the Lanzante run car could win. From memory, I suddenly remember lots of McLaren personnel suddenly appearing in the garage!
 

It wasn’t quite over, the Courage Sports Prototype of Andretti/Wollek/Helary was quickly closing in on the Ueno car, but they couldn’t beat the clock.

Yannick Dalmas took the chequered, the third win for the Frenchman and for Sekiya, the first Japanese driver to win at Le Mans.

It was also the first time a manufacturer won Le Mans on their debut and the first win for BMW. Here Yannick says hi to the crowd, with JJ behind and team manager Paul Lanzante blocking John Brooks view of Sekiya
 

McLaren finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 13th. It was a very proud moment for everyone at McLaren and while I had very little do with it, just designing a simple livery, cutting some stickers, it’s an extremely proud moment. I can’t imagine how the real heroes of McLaren Cars felt. It was a dream come true and a great way to sell a car.

Within days, everyone at McLaren had black t-shirts with an image of the car at speed at night, celebrating the win, lapel pins, stickers.
 

McLaren would produce a limited run of McLaren F1 LM cars to celebrate the win. It couldn’t get much better.
 

It was back to the BPR for most of the teams and a trip to Anderstorp, Sweden. This was to be the scene of McLaren’s first defeat! The Team Pilot Ferrari F40 of Michel Ferte and Olivier Thevenin beat the West McLaren home following a puncture earlier in the race. Second wasn’t too bad as it was valuable points and was ahead of their main competition, the Bellm/Sala Gulf car.
 

A long break in the series allowing all the teams to transport everything to Japan. The 1000km of Suzuka is an important race in Japan, with BMW Japan and Tokyo Uneo Clinic upping their support. The lead Gulf car had been repainted in the Le Mans winning Ueno Clinic colours, while the West car was back in the Monza Davidoff livery. Le Mans winner, Masanori Seikya  joined GTC for the event.
 
The reappearance of Ueno Clinic and Sekiya must have worked as the GTC car won the event, with Bscher and Nielsen in second.

The Harrods ‘Mach One’ McLaren GTR finally took their first victory at a wet Silverstone 4 hour event. Regular driver, Andy Wallace, was joined by Olivier Grouillard, who had previously driven the GRT McLaren. Grouillard would see out the season with the Harrods team, bringing his Jacadi and Elf sponsorship with him.  The Harrods car beat two Ferrari’s by almost a lap. The sister DPR car, the West Competition F1 GTR would finish 5th.

This would have been a disappointment, save for the Gulf GTC team having a dreadful day. Bscher/Nielsen increasing their lead in the series.

As the season neared its end the last European round would taken place in Nogaro in France. 

A tight twisty circuit favoured the McLaren with another win for Bscher and Nielsen, sealing the BPR Championship with one round to go. Their main challenger, Bellm and Sala finished third.

 
The final round of the series was a first. The 3 hours of Zhuhai was a street race with over 190,000 spectators. The large cost of getting to this event had seen the Harrods McLaren rebranded in San Miguel colours, a livery which I was asked to design. It was unusual at the time for having San Miguel in Cantonese on one side of the car. Harrods remained as a small sponsor with yellow headlamp eyelids.
 
The San Miguel car would take the victory from sister car, which was rebranded in the Davidoff livery this event for champions John Nielsen and Thomas Bscher.
 

1995 was a huge success for McLaren Cars and their customer teams. Winner of Le Mans, first time out and the BPR Championship. Drivers Champions, Nielsen and Bscher had finished 10 of the 12 rounds of the series and despite pressure from Ferrari and Porsche the British manufacturer dominated the series.

However, time does not stand still in Sportscars and McLaren knew they had to make improvements.

This has become an epic post, so I’ll post part two tomorrow.
 
Massive thanks to John Brooks and Sutton Images and to John and Erik Reynolds (aka Peloton25) for helping out with the article.  All other images are McLaren, or as indicated.

 - Andy Blackmore

Retrospective>> McLaren GTR Part 2, 1996

Retrospective>> McLaren GTR Long tail (1997)

McLaren F1 GTR 10R (96 launch car) video

F1 Forum on AutomotiveForums.com  (an amazing resource!)