To talk about the McLaren M30, a single-seater about which there is honestly little to say, it is perhaps better to start with its designer, Gordon Coppuck. The English engineer was responsible for designing the excellent M23 in 1973, with which the McLaren team won the Constructors' Championship in 1974, as well as the two Drivers' Championships in '74 and '76 with Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt. However, after this fantastic and successful car, Coppuck’s creative streak quickly dried up. He was no longer able to produce winning ideas and, most importantly, he struggled to fully understand how to exploit the immense potential of ground effect aerodynamics.
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| McLAREN M30, Alain Prost Montréal, Canadian GP 1980 |
For this reason, by 1979, the Woking cars could no longer keep pace with their competitors, quickly slipping to the back of the field and scoring only seven championship points throughout the entire season. In 1980, Coppuck once again proposed the mediocre McLaren M29, which had been used in the previous season. It was slightly revised in its “B” version in an attempt to improve aerodynamics, but this did not yield significant results, especially given the rapid progress of rival teams. To race the M29, McLaren retained veteran Northern Irish driver John Watson and paired him with the rising star Alain Prost, a French driver of Armenian descent who had shown great promise in junior formulae.
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| McLAREN M29B, Alain Prost Buenos Aires, Argentinian GP 1980 |
After winning the French senior karting championship in 1975, Prost moved to Formula Renault in 1976, where he dominated by winning every race except one. Stepping up to Formula 3 in 1978, he won both the French and European championships, immediately attracting the attention of top Formula 1 teams. In his F1 debut season, the future French champion quickly scored two points finishes, securing sixth place in Argentina and fifth in Brazil. However, in the following race in South Africa, he suffered a triple wrist fracture in an accident, forcing him to miss the Long Beach Grand Prix. In that same race, Watson achieved his best result of the season, finishing fourth, while young British driver Stephen South replaced Prost but failed to make it through pre-qualifying.
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| McLAREN M29B, John Watson Montecarlo, Monaco GP 1980 |
The M29’s limitations became increasingly evident as the season progressed, forcing Coppuck to rush the development of what would be his final car for the Woking team: the McLaren M30. The new single-seater was a conventional wing car, retaining the basic mechanical layout of the M29 but with slightly softer bodywork shapes and an improved underfloor to optimize ground effect. Only one M30 was built, and it was entrusted to Alain Prost, who raced it in the final four rounds of the championship, scoring just one points finish—a sixth-place result at the Dutch Grand Prix.
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| McLAREN M30, Alain Prost Zandvoort, Dutch GP 1980 |
In the last race of the season at Watkins Glen, the only existing M30 was destroyed in an accident and was never rebuilt, as the Woking team was about to be taken over by Ron Dennis’ Project Four group, which would lead the McLaren team from the following year. The M30 thus remains the last McLaren car to carry the "M" designation, as all future models would be named MP4.
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