Jack Brabham was a Royal Australian Air Force flight mechanic and ran a small engineering workshop before he started racing.
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Sir John Arthur Brabham was an Australian racing driver who was Formula One World Champion in 1959, 1960, and 1966. He was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name. Brabham was born on 2 April 1926 in Hurstville, New South Wales, then a commuter town outside Sydney. Brabham was involved with cars and mechanics from an early age. At the age of 12, he learned to drive the family car and the trucks of his father’s grocery business. Brabham attended technical college, studying metalwork, carpentry, and technical drawing.
Brabham was a Royal Australian Air Force flight mechanic and ran a small engineering workshop before he started racing midget cars in 1948, his successes with midgets led to his going to Britain to further his racing career. There he became part of the Cooper Car Company’s racing team, building as well as racing cars. In 1962 he established his own Brabham marque with fellow Australian Ron Tauranac. In the 1966 Formula One season Brabham became the first and still, the only man to win the Formula One world championship driving one of his own cars. He died on 19 May 2014, aged 88, following a lengthy battle with liver disease.
Brabham started racing after an American friend, Johnny Schonberg, persuaded him to watch a midget car race. After successfully running the midget at some hill climbing events in 1951, Brabham became interested in road racing. He 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. Upon arriving in Europe on his own in early 1955, Brabham based himself in the UK, where he bought another Cooper to race in national events.
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, Brabham was given the keys to the transporter taking the cars to a race. 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.
Brabham made his Grand Prix debut at the age of 29 driving the car at the 1955 British Grand Prix. It had a 2-liter engine, half a liter less than permitted, and ran slowly with a broken clutch before retiring. Later in the year Brabham, again driving the Bobtail, tussled with Stirling Moss for third place in a non-championship Formula One race at Snetterton. Although Moss finished ahead, Brabham saw the race as a turning point, proving that he could compete at this level. Brabham briefly and unsuccessfully campaigned his own second hand Formula One Maserati 250F during 1956, but his season was saved by drives for Cooper in sports cars and Formula Two, the junior category to Formula One.
| Races | 126 |
| Wins | 14 |
| Poles | 13 |
| Podiums | 31 |
| Points | 261 |
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According to the sources the current net worth of Jack Brabham was $3 Million, as of 2022. He was seen as one of the most successful racing drivers of all time. Brabham’s Net Worth & Basic source of earning was being a successful Australian racing driver. He earned substantial prize money from the various races he won and participated in. After his retirement he continued his interest in businesses in the UK and Australia, including a small aviation company. garages and car dealerships. He also set up Engine Developments Ltd. in 1971.
Betty Brabham was the first wife of Sir Jack Brabham. The couple got married in 1951, Betty was there for all of Sir Jack’s F1 titles in 1959, 1960 and 1966. Together they had three sons, Geoff, Gary and David who all launched into high profile racing careers. Brabham and Betty divorced in 1994 after 43 years. Brabham married his second wife, Margaret in 1995 and they lived on the Gold Coast, Queensland.
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