Engines

TAG Turbo Engines

In the course of 1981 McLaren boss Ron Dennis began to look for a turbocharged engine for his team and approached Porsche because he felt that the company had considerable experience in turbocharging. It was agreed that Porsche would build an engine for 1983 if McLaren could find the money. At the end of that year Dennis approached Mansour Ojjeh with the intention of luring him away from Williams to join McLaren as a partner rather than a sponsor. Ojjeh saw the logic in the argument and agreed to invest $5m in the new program. Ojjeh and Dennis established TAG Turbo Engines and the new engine itself was announced in September 1982. It was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in early 1983 and raced for the first time at the Dutch GP in August that year.In 1984 McLaren-TAG drivers Niki Lauda and Alain Prost dominated the World Championship, scoring 12 wins in 16 races. Lauda won the Drivers' Championship, while McLaren took the Contructors' title. In 1985 they won six races and won both titles again, it being Prost's turn this time. But in 1986 the Honda engines were becoming increasingly competitive and McLaren won only four times. Prost again got the Drivers' title but Williams-Honda took the Constructors'. The 1987 season was the last for the TAG Turbos and Prost won only three times. At the end of the year the program ended. McLaren switched to Honda and Porsche turned its attention to Indycar racing.