Lawson: McLaren wins shouldn't be marked by British anthem

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RB driver Liam Lawson says that McLaren shouldn't use the British national anthem to celebrate race victories on the podium, but should should honor founder Bruce McLaren’s New Zealand heritage instead.

McLaren is the second-oldest team on the grid, and was founded by four-time Grand Prix winner McLaren in 1963 with their first Formula 1 event coming in Monaco in 1966.

But historically, their race victories and podium appearances have always been marked by the playing of the British national anthem God Save The King as from the start they have raced under a British license issued by the FIA.

The team - which currently resides in Woking, approximately 40km southwest of London - has always operated out of the UK.

But Lawson - a proud Kiwi born and raised in the town of Pukekohe on the north island - thinks that McLaren should respect its founder's legacy and switch to using the New Zealand anthem instead.

Read also: Jos Verstappen backs Lawson as Perez's replacement at Red Bull

“It makes no sense,” he said on the latest edition of the Red Flags podcast. “It's a New Zealand team, the name is still McLaren. I have no idea.

“Honestly, especially if you're from New Zealand, because Bruce McLaren is an absolute legend," he added.

Lawson is the tenth driver from New Zealand to race in F1. The most recent Kiwi driver before him was Brendon Hartley who briefly raced for RB (under his previous guise of Toro Rosso) in 2018.

McLaren died at Goodwood in 1970 after an accident while testing the M8D Can-Am car, with American Teddy Mayer - a partner in the company from its inception - taking the reins of the team.

Today, majority parent company McLaren Group is fully owned by Mumtalakat Holding Company, Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund, while US investment firm MSP Sports Capital also holds a one-third stake in the race team.

A change of nationality - while unlikely in McLaren's case - would not be unprecedented for a Formula 1 team. Red Bull originally raced under a British license but switched to an Austrian one in 2007 to reflect the nationality of the team's owner Dietrich Mateschitz.

Benetton moved from a British to an Italian license in 1996. The team changed to a French license when it was taken over by Renault, then to a British one as Lotus in 2011. It reverted to a French license in 2016 and now races as Alpine .

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.