Hingham native Tyler Alexander, 75, passed away in London. recently.  Always  a top engineer in Formula 1, the world wide racing series was his beat.  Starting as a mechanic in 1962, he rose through the ranks from a mechanic to McLaren’s Director of Operations for over 50 years.  His mechanical ability and adminstrative skills also helped McClaren two Indy 500’s, eight Formula One World Championships and five Can Am sports car titles.  I*n the 60’s he joined the teams of John Mecom and Roger Penske.  He also teamed up with early F1 stelwarts Teddy Mayer, Peter Revson and Bruce McClaren.

The McClaren team went onto dominate the Can Am Series from  ’67-’71 with Oldsmobile power plants. Mayer and Alexander teamed up with Indy Car Tom Sneva and crew chief mechanic George Bignotti and just missed the 1984 Indy Car title.  Carl Hass and BMW of North America drafted Alexander their Formula 1 and IMSA Sports Car campaigns  for the 1957 through 1987 seasons.  Following that Tyler wnet back to  McLaren  race shop in England as Special Products Manager in 1989.  Alexander was responsible for pole vaulting the careers of Areton Senna, Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton in Formula One before retiring  in 2009.

His most recent project was authoring A Life and Times McLaren, his auto biography in 2015.  Alexander previous authored McLaren From the Inside photo collection from the 1960 through 2000 F1 photography.

Information for this story came from Reuters and personal notes.