SCHOLARSHIPS

Having been awarded the inaugural Driver to Europe Scholarship by the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association, Bruce made his way to England to further his racing career. He initially made a name for himself driving for the Cooper Team before founding his own company, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing in 1963. The rest is history, but it is often wondered how he would have fared had he not won this scholarship.

The Trustees wanted to support a young New Zealander to help achieve their dreams in a similar way so one of our new objectives was to support a scholar from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Auckland to a three-month internship with McLaren Racing in the UK.  

The Automotive engineer’s scholarship has been in place for a few years, and the Racing engineer’s scholarship commenced in 2023. The Trustees are delighted to announce that after discussions with the NZUK Link Foundation, who were already supporting the Automotive scholarship, it was agreed that the two entities would jointly fund the two scholarships, one to McLaren Racing and one to McLaren Automotive.

To enable this to occur, a Donation Agreement between the Trust and the University of Auckland has now been signed.

The Trustees would like to thanks the NZUK LInk Foundation for it’s ongoing support of these scholarships.

The proposed scholarship for a young New Zealand driver is still under discussion. We hope to make a decision on this in the near future.