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Name: McLaren

McLaren began life in the mid-1960s, their first race being the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, with team founder Bruce McLaren securing a maiden win two years later at Spa-Francorchamps.

Tragically McLaren was to die in a testing accident in 1970; however, his racing team went on to make steady progress.

McLaren's fellow Kiwi Denny Hulme helped the team to five wins and Peter Revson to two between 1968 and 1973, laying the foundations for success the following year as McLaren secured their first drivers' and constructors' championships.

New signing Emerson Fittipaldi took three wins as he edged out Ferrari's Clay Regazzoni for the drivers' title by three points, with team-mate Hulme grabbing another to help secure the constructors' title.

There was more success for McLaren in 1976 when Fittipaldi's replacement James Hunt won the drivers' championship in teeming rain at the final race, the Japanese GP at Mount Fuji, beating Ferrari's Niki Lauda by a single point.

Ferrari, however, would retain the constructors' title that year.

Hunt won the same race 12 months later - his last F1 victory - with the team themselves then having to wait until July 1981 for their next win, scored by John Watson in the British Grand Prix.

McLaren were by that time under the administrative reins of Ron Dennis and Mansour Ojjeh and the team, renamed McLaren International, went on to achieve prominence during much of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Ending their long association with Ford in 1983, McLaren switched to the TAG-Porsche engine and went on to win the 1984 and 1985 constructors' championships, with drivers Niki Lauda and Alain Prost respectively winning the drivers' titles.

And, although they lost constructors' honours to Williams in 1986 and 1987, Prost still took the drivers' championship in 1986.

However, the best was still to come for McLaren, with the 1988 season seeing them at the zenith of their powers.

With Ayrton Senna joining Prost and bringing with him the all-conquering Honda engine, McLaren won all but one of the races that season and stormed to the championship.

Only the Italian GP at Monza eluded them after drivers' champion-elect Ayrton Senna crashed with just two laps to go.

The team went on to record another three consecutive constructors' championships to make it four in a row between 1988 and 1991.

Prost won the 1989 title but, his relationship with Senna having deteriorated, the Frenchman left for Ferrari the following season.

Senna then took the drivers' title for McLaren in 1990 - colliding with Prost at the first corner of the Japanese GP - and the following season.

However, their dominance was brought to an end when Williams won both the 1992 constructors' and drivers' championships - Nigel Mansell taking the latter.

Soon, McLaren were struggling to find any form and, after Senna's win in the 1993 Australian GP, the team did not record a victory for three consecutive seasons.

After a series of uncompetitive Peugeot and Ford engines, McLaren signed a deal with Mercedes in 1995 and it proved the beginning of a revival.

Yet they would have to wait until the start of the 1997 season for David Coulthard to score the partnership's first victory in Melbourne.

In 1998 all the pieces fell into place for McLaren as they secured the constructors' championship with nine wins and the drivers' championship for Mika Hakkinen.

In 1999, and despite the occasional moment of madness from the flying Finn, Hakkinen won the drivers' championship again, though arch rivals Ferrari took the constructors' honours.

With Daimler-Chrysler now having purchased 40 percent of the company, McLaren were odds-on favourites to take their third successive drivers' title in 2000.

However from the outset of that season it was clear that Ferrari meant business.

Poor reliability and indifferent performances from Hakkinen left McLaren trailing the Italian team by almost 30 points after just three rounds, but as the season progressed, they fought back with Hakkinen and Coulthard grabbing a string of mid-season victories.

The strength of the Ferrari effort, together with a pair of questionable decisions by the sport's governing body the FIA, meant McLaren could only manage the runners-up spot in both championships.

In 2001, McLaren retained Hakkinen and Coulthard for a record sixth successive season, but once again they failed to set the track ablaze.

The relative failure of 2000 continued the following season, with the team only managing four victories - two for Coulthard and two for Hakkinen.

The latter also announced during the year that he would not be returning to the team in 2002 (his sabbatical subsequently turned into retirement).

The gloom deepened in 2002: the Mercedes engine was down on power and a lack of engine development was put down to the tragic death of Ilmor founder Paul Morgan in a plane crash.

Coulthard won in Monaco courtesy of some nifty pits-to-car telemetry and new team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was very unlucky not to get a maiden win in France, the young Finn spinning on oil with just two laps to go.

But the significant moves of the year were technical.

The team signed up BMW's Werner Laurenz, Arrows' Mike Coughlan and Ferrari's John Sutton to create a formidable technical team for the 2003 season, a campaign they planned to start with the MP4-17D before swapping to the MP4-18 when the European leg began.

However the MP4-18, hit by a series of technical failures, never made its debut, with Raikkonen and Coulthard forced to contest the entire season with the previous year's car.

The setback was critical - the impressive Raikkonen eventually finishing just two points behind Michael Schumacher.

Hopes were high that the introduction of the MP4-19 would enable Raikkonen to take the fight to Schumacher in 2004, but it quickly emerged that it was one of the worst cars in the team's history.

Indeed, the start to the season, in which McLaren struggled to score a handful of points, was statistically their worst since the 1970s.

The introduction of MP4-19B was a blessed relief and propelled Raikkonen to a fabulous Belgian GP win at Spa-Francorchamps, but it was too little, too late.

In 2005, Coulthard was replaced by the volatile and hard-charging Juan-Pablo Montoya, giving McLaren arguably their most exciting driver line-up since the days of Senna and Prost.

However, after being Injured in a "tennis accident", Montoya missed the Bahrain and San Marino GPs and, although he returned to take victory in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the Colombian struggled to find his feet.

Raikkonen, meanwhile, was dogged by reliability issues.

Although McLaren's MP4-20 was the quickest car on the grid for the bulk of the season, its Mercedes engine was one of the most unreliable, failing Raikkonen no less than four times during grand prix weekends.

The Finn had to settle as runner-up to Fernando Alonso in the drivers' championship, while McLaren had to contend with second place behind Renault in the teams' battle.

Much like they had two years earlier, McLaren took quite a fall in 2006; in fact, their performance was worse, in that they failed to win a single grand prix throughout the entire 18-race season.

The season-opening Bahrain GP saw both signs of concern and promise for the Woking team: Raikkonen suffered a suspension failure in qualifying, but the Finn and Montoya respectively finished third and fifth in the race.

Qualifying was certainly a problem for the team as Raikkonen's P4 on the grid was the best they managed to achieve in the opening six events as outright pace let them down time and time again.

McLaren battled on, claiming at least one podium finish over the next three races, but they never looked like winning races.

The low point of the team's season came at the United States GP when a first lap incident between Montoya and Raikkonen resulted in a double retirement - and a lot of heated debate.

Shortly afterwards came the shock announcement that Montoya was quitting the team to switch to NASCAR in 2007.

An angry McLaren management team responded by immediately dropping the Colombian, replacing him with reserve driver Pedro de la Rosa for the French GP.

The Spaniard performed admirably, claiming a points-scoring finish in his first race.

With Raikkonen bound for Ferrari and de la Rosa not considered for a full-time promotion, the team began 2007 with double world champion Fernando Alonso and GP2 champion - and team protege - Lewis Hamilton behind the wheel.

While the partnership looked great on paper, it ultimately proved to be a volatile mix.

The duo fought both on and off the track, with the tension already showing at the Monaco GP when Hamilton hinted that McLaren wouldn't allow him to challenge Alonso for the win.

One race later, though, and it was Hamilton who was winning, clinching his first grand prix victory in Canada. But when he followed it up with a win at the United States Grand Prix seven days later, it was Alonso who was shaking his fist and complaining.

A month later and any sense of civility between the two Woking drivers had broken down.

During qualifying for the Hungarian GP, Hamilton disobeyed team orders to let Alonso pass him at the start of the final qualifying session.

The Spaniard responded by deliberately staying in the pitbox long enough to prevent Hamilton from getting new tyres and getting out in time to challenge for pole position.

However, Alonso was the only driver the FIA punished when they demoted him from pole to sixth place on the grid - McLaren also punished by being banned from scoring constructors' championship points.

Hamilton was handed his team-mate's pole and used it to maximum effect - scoring his third victory of the season.

But the internecine war between the two McLaren drivers ultimately mitigated against success for either man - Raikkonen instead hitting form when it mattered most to overhaul a gap to Hamilton that had stood at 17 points with just two races remaining.

To say the least, McLaren also had problems off the track to worry about, after being caught in unauthorised possession of Ferrari's secret technical information.

Although Dennis protested his team's innocence throughout what became known as the 'Stepneygate' scandal, the FIA eventually found them guilty of 'fraudulent conduct' and kicked them out of the constructors' championship, as well as handing them a record £50million fine.

McLaren's reputation suffered a severe dent which the team now have to set about rebuilding.

And there's probably no-one better to help them do that than Hamilton, who will be staying at Woking until 2012.

The British ace is widely regarded as F1's saviour following Michael Schumacher's departure and this year's championship could see him become the man to hand McLaren there first World title since Mika Hakkinen in 1999.

And with likeable new team-mate Heikki Kovalainen not prone to trouble-making, expect McLaren's internal feuding to become a thing of the past.