In this same year, 1958, Tyrrell, one of the great spotters of driving talent, offered Bruce the drive in his F2 Cooper and this friendship and educational experience was also important. The perfectionist in Bruce began to show itself in many ways. The late "Noddy" Grohman and Mike Barney were perfectionist Cooper mechanics and friends also. One hour before the race, Bruce, with a little list in his hand would say, "Noddy and Mike, did you top her up with oil?" The two mechanics would not even deign to answer and gave him looks that could kill. When they were not looking, however, Bruce simply could not resist undoing the filler cap to peek.

The next year saw him join the Cooper factory team along with Jack Brabham and Masten Gregory. It is not widely known that Bruce received much training in engineering school and during the next years there cannot have been two other drivers who spent more time involved in testing, development and preparation than he and Brabham. This was a period of the most important and happy hard work.

This was also the time when the leaders in the sport were quietly realizing that while it was important to get maximum horsepower, seconds could also be knocked off lap times by tuning the chassis. Ken Tyrrell was a pioneer here and he always thought very highly of Bruce in this regard. As Tyrrell explained it, one of the most difficult things a driver is called upon to do in testing is to drive constantly flat-out at exactly the same speed, lap after lap, and then report on the handling and so on. It was here that all the ground­work for the subsequent maturation in the whole field of motor racing was done.

At the end of 1959 Bruce McLaren became, at 22, the youngest driver ever to win a World Championship F1 race, the U.S. Grand Prix at Sebring. For Cooper, 1959 was the first of the two successive golden years, as they won the Manufacturers’ Championship, and in 1960 Jack retained his World Championship with 23-year-old Bruce second in the standings for World Cham­pionship driver. Bruce was to win a total of four grandes epreuves: U.S. (1959), Argentina (1960), Monte Carlo (1962) and Belgium (1968). As an indicator of his experience and reliability over the years, in accumulative cham­pionship points he ranked fifth behind Graham Hill, Fangio, Jim Clark and his friend Brabham.

He remained with Cooper until 1966, succeeding Brabham as their No. 1 driver when Jack left in 1962 to build his own cars. He started during this time his dogged versatile expansion into all branches of racing, including sports cars. He came to enjoy this very much and made many friends in the U.S. In 1966 he won the 24 hours of Le Mans with Chris Amon in a 7-liter Ford Mark IIA and in the following year the 12 hours of Sebring with Mario Andretti in a Ford Mark IV.

Another milestone was reached in 1963-64 because he was itchy to break out and have his own team. For the Tasman series he had his own two specially built 2.5-liter Coopers. The late Timmy Mayer had spent his first European season in Formula 3 driving in Ken Tyrrell's nursery and Bruce invited him to join him Down Under, being much impressed with his talent. This was to be a sort of rehearsal as John Cooper had also been impressed enough to sign the young American as his number two driver to number one McLaren for the following season. Although Bruce won that Tasman series championship, the new team returned in sadness for Timmy was tragically killed in practice for the last race of that series. For Teddy Mayer, manager for his brother, and mechanic Tyler Alexander, however, this was the start of their long subsequent association and eventual setting up of McLaren Racing Ltd. in 1966 with Teddy Mayer as partner. From that point on we saw another quality emerge in Bruce, that of an astute businessman and hard working executive.