Founded by the Kiwi Bruce McLaren in 1963, Bruce McLaren Motor Racing merged in 1981 with the Project 4 team, which was being run by the barn owl Ron Dennis. The team is now part of McLaren Racing, a member of the McLaren Group, under the umbrella of McLaren Holdings, a subsidiary of McLaren PLC, which is wholly owned by McLaren (World Domination) Ltd.

Bruce McLaren is currently the only driver to have won a Formula One world championship race in a car bearing his own name as a constructor*, although the dotdotdotcomma-sponsored driver Panasonic Toyota, currently racing a borrowed Caterham with limited success, is optimistic of one day becoming the second.

The team has rapidly become one of the most successful in F1 history and is widely regarded as technologically top-notch, if sometimes a little fragile operationally. They are constantly trying to persuade everyone that they may be stiff and corporate but they still know how to have a good time. It's not terribly convincing.

They're far from unemotional, however, and Ron Dennis can often be glimpsed furtively wiping away a tear or two of joy. In fact, when one of his favoured drivers has won against seemingly insuperable odds during a troubled time for the team, it can sometimes be hard to hear the national anthems over the sound of Ron's blubbing.

*Other than, we've just realised, Jack Brabham. Who also won the world championship. Arse. Rest assured, our research team will be hung, drawn and quartered. Or should that be "hanged"?

Ron Dennis is the saviour of the McLaren team, a cold-hearted megalomaniac or the epitome of corporate tedium, depending on the view to which you subscribe. It's more than likely, of course, that he's actually all three.

After taking over the reins in 1980, Dennis quickly transformed McLaren from a team that hadn't won a race for three years into a highly successful outfit. They may not inspire the slavish, mindless devotion that Ferrari enjoys but the team is all the more grounded because of it.

In his time, Ron's had to referee feuding team-mates (although Alonso v. Hamilton didn't really come close to Senna v. Prost for sheer volatility), he's seen Mika Hakkinen nearly die in one of his cars and he's had to stomach a one hundred million dollar fine.

On the plus side, he's never had to work with Michael Schumacher, he's got a CBE and he's rich enough to have paid the hundred million dollars from his own pocket if he'd wanted.

Finding even mildly amusing things to say about Mario Theissen is harder than building a Formula One car in a country that's banned motorsport but here goes.

Theissen gained some kind of distinctly serious engineering qualification from Aachen University and joined BMW soon afterwards. He has since signally failed to indulge in any ill-advised job-hopping that might have given us something to poke fun at.

His loyalty and no doubt a sober application to his work were rewarded in 1999 when he was made BMW's motorsport director, with responsibility for assaults on the World Touring Car Championship (highly successful), 24 Heures Du Mans (pretty successful), F1 championship with Williams (less successful than it should have been) and the F1 championship again, this time with BMW's own team (increasingly successful).

Some observers (ourselves included) have pointed out a physical similarity between Theissen and Mr Potato Head, while others maintain that he is the spitten image of his namesake Super Mario, or possibly one of his brothers. In truth, he probably looks most like Ned Flanders, although you could probably level the same accusation at anyone with a moustache and glasses and a house next door to Homer Simpson.

He has not made any risible errors of judgement, he has avoided embarrassing sex scandals and he obstinately refuses to sport garish jewellery, outlandish clothes or silly haircuts. He simply goes about the solemn business of running a Formula One team and actually being rather good at it.

He did, however, give us all a bloody good laugh by sacking Jacques Villenueve in 2007.