77 Facts About Jack Brabham

1.

Sir John Arthur Brabham was an Australian racing driver who was Formula One World Champion in 1959,1960, and 1966.

2.

Jack Brabham was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name.

3.

Jack Brabham was a Royal Australian Air Force flight mechanic and ran a small engineering workshop before he started racing midget cars in 1948.

4.

Jack Brabham contributed to the design of the mid-engined cars that Cooper introduced to Formula One and the Indianapolis 500, and won the Formula One world championship in 1959 and 1960.

5.

Jack Brabham was the last surviving World Champion of the 1950s.

6.

Jack Brabham retired to Australia after the 1970 Formula One season, where he bought a farm and maintained business interests, which included the Engine Developments racing engine manufacturer and several garages.

7.

John Arthur 'Jack' Brabham was born on 2 April 1926 in Hurstville, New South Wales, then a commuter town outside Sydney.

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8.

Jack Brabham was involved with cars and mechanics from an early age.

9.

Jack Brabham attended technical college, studying metalwork, carpentry, and technical drawing.

10.

Jack Brabham soon branched out into his own business selling motorbikes, which he bought and repaired for sale, using his parents' back veranda as his workshop.

11.

One month after his 18th birthday on 19 May 1944 Jack Brabham enlisted into the Royal Australian Air Force.

12.

Jack Brabham was based at RAAF Station Williamtown, where he maintained Bristol Beaufighters at No 5 Operational Training Unit.

13.

On his 20th birthday, 2 April 1946, Jack Brabham was discharged from the RAAF with the rank of leading aircraftman.

14.

Jack Brabham then started a small service, repair, and machining business in a workshop built by his uncle on a plot of land behind his grandfather's house.

15.

Jack Brabham started racing after an American friend, Johnny Schonberg, persuaded him to watch a midget car race.

16.

Jack Brabham bought and modified a series of racing cars from the Cooper Car Company, a British constructor, and from 1953 concentrated on this form of racing, in which drivers compete on closed tarmac circuits.

17.

Jack Brabham competed in Australia and New Zealand until early 1955, taking "a long succession of victories", including the 1953 Queensland Road Racing championship.

18.

Jack Brabham's crowd-pleasing driving style initially betrayed his dirt track origins: as he put it, he took corners "by using full [steering] lock and lots of throttle".

19.

Visits to the Cooper factory for parts led to a friendship with Charlie and John Cooper, who told the story that after many requests for a drive with the factory team, Jack Brabham was given the keys to the transporter taking the cars to a race.

20.

Jack Brabham soon "seemed to merge into Cooper Cars": he was not an employee, but he started working at Cooper daily from the midpoint of the 1955 season building a Bobtail mid-engined sports car, intended for Formula One, the top category of single seater racing.

21.

Jack Brabham made his Grand Prix debut at the age of 29 driving the car at the 1955 British Grand Prix.

22.

Later in the year Jack Brabham, again driving the Bobtail, tussled with Stirling Moss for third place in a non-championship Formula One race at Snetterton.

23.

Jack Brabham shipped the Bobtail back to Australia, where he used it to win the 1955 Australian Grand Prix before selling it to help fund a permanent move to the UK the following year with his wife Betty and their son Geoff.

24.

In 1957, Jack Brabham drove another mid-engined Cooper, again only fitted with a 2-litre engine, at the Monaco Grand Prix.

25.

Jack Brabham avoided a large crash at the first corner and was running third towards the end of the race when the fuel pump mount failed.

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26.

Jack Brabham's schedule necessitated a considerable amount of travel on the roads of Europe.

27.

In late 1958, Jack Brabham rekindled his interest in flying and began taking lessons.

28.

Jack Brabham bought his own plane and on gaining his licence began to make heavy use of it piloting himself, his family, and members of his team around Europe to races.

29.

In 1959, Cooper obtained 2.5-litre engines for the first time and Jack Brabham put the extra power to good use by winning his first world championship race at the season-opening Monaco Grand Prix after Jean Behra's Ferrari and Stirling Moss's Cooper failed.

30.

At the Portuguese Grand Prix at Monsanto Park, Jack Brabham was chasing race leader Moss when a backmarker moved over on him and launched the Cooper into the air.

31.

Jack Brabham again pushed the car to the finish line to place fourth, although in the event this was unnecessary as his other title rival, Brooks, finished only third.

32.

Jack Brabham considered buying Cooper in partnership with Roy Salvadori and then in late 1959 he asked his friend Ron Tauranac to come to the UK and work with him, producing upgrade kits for Sunbeam Rapier and Triumph Herald road cars at his car dealership, Jack Brabham Motors, but with the long-term aim of designing racing cars.

33.

Jack Brabham continued to drive for Cooper, but on the long flight back from the 1960 season-opening Argentine Grand Prix, he had a heart-to-heart with John Cooper.

34.

Jack Brabham helped design the more advanced Cooper T53, including advice from Tauranac.

35.

Jack Brabham spun the new car out of the next championship race, the Monaco Grand Prix, but then embarked on a series of five straight victories.

36.

Jack Brabham won from the front at the Dutch, French, and Belgian Grands Prix, where title rival Moss was badly injured in a practice accident that put him out for two months.

37.

At the British Grand Prix, Jack Brabham was closing on Graham Hill's BRM before Hill spun off, leaving Jack Brabham the victory.

38.

Jack Brabham then came back from eighth place to second at the Portuguese Grand Prix after sliding off on tramlines and won after race leader John Surtees crashed.

39.

Mike Lawrence writes that Jack Brabham's expertise in setting up the cars was a significant factor in Cooper's 1960 drivers' and constructors' titles.

40.

Jack Brabham scored only three points and finished 11th in the championship.

41.

Jack Brabham had a little more success in the non-championship Formula One races, where he ran his own private Coopers and took three victories at Snetterton, Brussels, and Aintree.

42.

Jack Brabham ran as high as third before finishing ninth, completing all 200 laps.

43.

Jack Brabham left Cooper in 1962 to drive for his own team: the Jack Brabham Racing Organisation, using cars built by Motor Racing Developments.

44.

Dan Gurney took the lead driver role, and the team's first world championship win, while Jack Brabham gave up his car to several other drivers towards the end of the season.

45.

Jack Brabham took a different approach to the problem of obtaining a suitable engine: he persuaded Australian engineering company Repco to develop a new 3-litre eight-cylinder engine for him.

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46.

Jack Brabham had identified a supply of suitable engine blocks obtained from Oldsmobile's aluminium alloy 215 engine and persuaded the company that an engine could be designed around the block, largely using existing components.

47.

At the French Grand Prix at Reims-Gueux, Jack Brabham took his first Formula One world championship win since 1960 and became the first man to win such a race in a car of his own construction.

48.

The 40-year-old Jack Brabham was annoyed by press stories about his age and, in a highly uncharacteristic stunt, at the Dutch Grand Prix he hobbled to his car on the starting grid before the race wearing a long false beard and leaning on a cane before going on to win the race.

49.

Jack Brabham confirmed his third championship at the Italian Grand Prix and became the only driver to win the Formula One World Championship in a car that carried his own name.

50.

Jack Brabham won ten of the year's 16 European Formula Two races in his Jack Brabham-Honda.

51.

Jack Brabham spun numerous times in South Africa, and at Monaco, his engine blew up at the start, and the win went to his teammate Denny Hulme.

52.

Jack Brabham retired in the Belgian Grand Prix with another blown engine.

53.

Jack Brabham fixed this by winning the French Grand Prix at the Bugatti Circuit in Le Mans.

54.

Jack Brabham came fourth at the British Grand Prix, behind Chris Amon, his teammate Hulme, and Clark.

55.

At the German Grand Prix, he had a huge battle with Amon, and Jack Brabham eventually finished ahead of the New Zealander, by only half a second.

56.

At the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Jack Brabham had to finish second, only a few car lengths behind John Surtees, who took his last GP win.

57.

Hulme finished third, and so the New Zealander won the championship, while Jack Brabham settled for second place.

58.

Jack Brabham raced alongside his teammate Jochen Rindt during the 1968 season.

59.

Jack Brabham retired from the first seven races, before scoring two points for fifth place at the German Grand Prix.

60.

Partway through the 1969 season, Jack Brabham suffered serious injuries to his foot in a testing accident.

61.

Jack Brabham returned to racing before the end of the year, but promised his wife that he would retire after the season finished and sold his share of the team to Tauranac.

62.

Jack Brabham began auspiciously, winning the first race of the season, the South African Grand Prix, and then led the third race, the Monaco Grand Prix until the very last turn of the last lap.

63.

Jack Brabham was about to hold off the onrushing Rindt when his front wheels locked in a skid on the sharp right turn only yards from the finish and he ended up second.

64.

Jack Brabham had tied Jackie Stewart for fifth in the points standings in the season he drove at the age of 44.

65.

Jack Brabham then made a complete break from racing and returned to Australia, to the relief of his wife who had been "scared stiff" each time he drove.

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66.

Jack Brabham says that he "never really wanted" the move, but his wife hoped their sons could grow up away from motorsport.

67.

The Jack Brabham team continued in Formula One, winning two further Drivers' Championships in the early 1980s under Bernie Ecclestone's ownership.

68.

Jack Brabham was the first post-war racing driver to be knighted when he received the honour in 1978 for services to motorsport.

69.

Jack Brabham has received several other honours and in 2011, the suburb of Brabham in Perth, Western Australia, was named after him.

70.

In retirement, Jack Brabham continued to be involved in motorsport events, appearing at contemporary and historic motorsport events around the world where he often drove his former Cooper and Jack Brabham cars until the early 2000s.

71.

Jack Brabham married his second wife, Margaret in 1995 and they lived on the Gold Coast, Queensland.

72.

The Jack Brabham family have been involved in world-class motorsport for over 60 years.

73.

Jack Brabham made his last public appearance on 18 May 2014, appearing with one of the cars he built.

74.

Jack Brabham died at his home on the Gold Coast on 19 May 2014, aged 88, following a lengthy battle with liver disease.

75.

Jack Brabham was eating breakfast with his wife, Margaret, when he died.

76.

Jack Brabham lived an incredible life, achieving more than anyone would ever dream of and he will continue to live on through the astounding legacy he leaves behind.

77.

Jack Brabham was the last surviving world champion from the 1950s era.