McLaren
From Frikipedia
McLaren are a long running F1 team, famous in recent years for their innate ability to snatch defeat from the cloying hands of victory on a depressingly regular basis.
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The Past
"I want a car of my very own!" - Bruce McLaren, 1966
McLaren first appeared on the F1 grid back in the dark mists of time, when (apparently) overtaking happened more often than ever before, and drivers regularly died because the cars were so fundamentally unsafe. The team was the brainchild of Kiwi driver, Bruce McLaren, possibly paving the path for the likes of Jacques Villeneuve and Takuma Sato in years to come by setting up his own team to avoid the rumour that he was too bubbish to get a drive anywhere else.
During the years before the stupidly unsafe cars of the age killed him, McLaren won the odd race, but after he shuffled off the mortal coil, McLaren descended into a long period of success, winning a few championships, including an absolute pulling of a Rosberg when foppish English drunk, James Hunt benefitted from his nearest rival burning his ears off to take the 1976 crown.
The Dennis Era (aka "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn")
In the 1980's, balding fun-merchant Ron Dennis took over, and began the process of turning McLaren into a winning dynasty, Abramovich-style. He bought the two best drivers of the day and the best engines and designers, and the end of the 1980's was terribly terribly boring (though the odd person may try and tell you different).
Amusingly, the dynasty was not to last. As one driver retired and the other decided to meet his maker elsewhere, coupled with Honda's decision to stop giving them engines, McLaren descended into lower-midfield obscurity the like of which not even Sauber had seen before. The likes of Mika Hakkinen, Mark Blundell, and (briefly) the now rather portly Nigel Mansell were brought in to arrest their decline, but really the problem was the crap Peugoet engines.
The Revival (aka "Even with DC in the team, we can win races!")
Eventually, Dennis offloaded them to Prost and got shiny Mercedes engines, along with the shiny chin of David Coulthard to partner Hakkinen.
The outlook soon got better, and Hakkinen took back to back drivers championships in 1998 and 1999, albiet trying his hardest through unreliability, breaking down in tears, or general crapness to very nearly chuck both titles into the waiting lap of The Chin. From 2000 onwards, they succeeded in their goal and Schumacher never looked back.
Hakkinen retired at some point or other and was replaced by a sort of Tesco Value version of himself in Kimi Raikkonen. DC proved harder to uproot, but was eventually beaten in a best-of-three sumo wrestling contest by Juan Pablo Montoya, who joined the team for a year and a half in 2005 to help convince Ferrari that Kimi was a lot better than he actually was.
The Present
All change for 2007, as the perennially joyless Dennis brings in Fernando Alonso (a driver hated by the viewing public almost as much as McLaren themselves are) and Tyler (whom Dennis has been grooming since he was a three-year-old, like a slimy old man hanging around near a playground).
The 2007 challenger is 30% shinier than last years car and, shockingly, is yet to explode in race conditions, an oversight presumably stemming from Mercedes failing to compensate for the lower stress levels that Hamilton and Alonso will be placing on the car compared to Kimi "Make car go now" Raikkonen.
