Brabham, Jack

Jack Brabham, in full Sir John Arthur Brabham, byname Black Jack, (born April 2, 1926, Hurtsville, New South Wales, Australia—died May 19, 2014, Gold Coast, Queensland), Australian race-car driver, engineer, and team owner who won the Formula One (F1) Grand Prix world drivers’ championship three times (1959, 1960, and 1966) and the automobile constructors’ championship twice (1966 and 1967). In 1966 he became the first man to win a world driving championship in his own namesake car.

Brabham, Jack

After serving as a mechanic in the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II, Brabham set up his own engineering business in 1946. He took up midget-car racing (1946–52) in Australia, and in 1955 he moved to England to drive for the Cooper team in F1 Grand Prix racing. Brabham captured his first F1 victory four years later in Monaco. After having secured the world driving championship twice for Cooper, he left the team in 1961 to build his own automobiles. That year he also drove in the first of his four Indianapolis 500 races and introduced the first rear-engine vehicle to Indy car racing. Over his 15-year F1 driving career, Brabham raced in 126 Grand Prix and racked up 14 victories, the last of which came in South Africa in 1970. He retired at the end of that season after having finished sixth in the drivers’ championship and fourth in the constructors’ championship.

Brabham was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1967, a year after he was named Australian of the Year. He was knighted in 1979 and was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1990.