Brabham’s F1 career lasted a remarkable sixteen years in an age when safety standards were poor and driver fatality rates were high.
His first full season came with Cooper in 1957 and in 1959 he took his first win, at Monaco. He added a second win at the British Grand Prix at Aintree and won the title by four points from Tony Brooks. The following year he made it two-in-a-row.
In 1962 he embarked on a plan to run a team under his own name and took the championship for the third in 1966, the only driver to do so in his own team. He was runner-up to Denny Hulme in 1967 but didn’t win again until 1970.
That was the year he led lap after lap at Monaco, only to spin off at the final corner under pressure from Jochen Rindt. He retired at the end of the year.
teamorders said on 8th August 2008, 5:41
Brabham seems to be an under rated driver, given his achievements I would have expected him to pop up more often as a hihgly rated driver of the past. It’s not like the competition was weak in the late fifties and sixties, or maybe the other cars were weak but the drivers weren’t???
Stan Kirk said on 28th January 2011, 23:28
Sir Jack Brabham drove like the gentleman that he still is, always hard and fair with an incredible feel for the car, what it was doing and why, which came from his engineering background. His ground breaking contributions to motor racing, making rear engined cars work (his input into the Cooper rear engined F1 should not be under appreciated), the dynamic affect he had on the Indy 500 with just one demonstration appearance with a F1 cooper and winning Grand Prix and the world championship with a car of his own teams construction, will probably not be surpassed – no contest.
hohum said on 3rd July 2011, 3:53
Regarding the Cooper rear engine revolution, I know Auto Union did it successfully in the 30′s but I’ve often wondered whether a car I saw race near Orange NSW Australia in the mid 50s may have influenced Jack and hence Cooper, it was a Jowett Jupiter special, ie. an open wheel racer with a small (1.2l I think) 4cyl boxer engine at the back, I dont think it won but it did very well beating lots of more powerful front-engined cars .That was the first race meeting I ever went to and the little yellow Jowett special is the only thing I remember of it, it was the talking point of the day.