Jean-Pierre
Jabouille

Jean-Pierre Jabouille was born in Paris on 1 October 1942. After a short spell studying fine arts at the Sorbonne he turned to motorsport and later qualified as an engineer. He first attracted attention in French Formula Three in 1967 and finished runner-up behind François Cevert in 1968, looking after his car himself. In 1969 Alpine took him on as a development driver. He finished third overall at the Le Mans 24 Hours in both 1973 and 1974. In 1974 he also made his first Formula One attempts, but did not qualify an Iso-Marlboro in France or a Surtees in Austria.

In 1975 he broke away from Alpine and built his own Formula Two chassis. He ended the year as runner-up to Jacques Laffite and made his Grand Prix debut in a Tyrrell at the French Grand Prix, finishing 12th. In 1976 he focused on Formula Two and won the title.

Renault signed him to develop its new 1.5-litre turbocharged engine for Formula One. The RS01 made its debut at the 1977 British Grand Prix. The engine was fragile at first and had pronounced turbo lag, but Jabouille, as an engineer, kept developing the car. In 1978 he finished fourth at Watkins Glen, earning Renault its first points. In 1979 he took Renault's first pole position, in South Africa, and won the French Grand Prix from pole, the first Grand Prix win by a turbo-engined car. Another win followed in Austria in 1980. In all he started 49 races, won two and took six pole positions. His best championship finish was eighth in 1980.

At the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix a suspension failure caused a heavy accident, just after he had signed for Ligier for 1981. He returned, but ended his Formula One career during that 1981 season. He became Ligier's team manager in 1982, and in 1984 held the same role for its joint entry with Curb Racing in the CART series. In the mid-1980s he returned to racing as a driver. Afterwards he helped Peugeot develop its sports car programme. He finished third overall at Le Mans in 1992 and 1993. In 1994 he became director of Peugeot Sport and left in 1995. After that he ran his own sports car team. Jabouille died on 2 February 2023, aged 80. His son Victor also became a racing driver.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jean-Pierre Jabouille”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.