Sir John Arthur "Jack" Brabham, AO, OBE (born April 2 1926) is an Australian former racing driver who was Formula One 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 a Royal Australian Air Force flight mechanic and ran a small engineering workshop before he started racing midget cars in 1948. His successes in midgets and Australian and New Zealand road racing events led to him going to the United Kingdom to further his racing career. There he became part of the Cooper Car Company's racing team, building as well as racing cars. He 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. In 1962 he established his own Brabham marque with fellow Australian Ron Tauranac, which became the largest manufacturer of customer racing cars in the world in the 1960s. In 1966 Brabham became the only man to win the Formula One world championship driving one of his own cars.

Brabham retired to Australia after the 1970 Formula One season, where he bought a farm and maintained various business interests, which included the Engine Developments racing engine manufacturer and several garages. As of 2008, he is the oldest surviving Formula One world champion.

Early life

John Arthur Brabham was born on 2 April 1926 in Hurstville, then a commuter town outside Sydney, Australia. 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, preferring basic metalwork, carpentry and technical drawing.

Brabham's early career continued the engineering theme. At the age of 15 he left school to work, combining a job at a local garage with an evening course in mechanical engineering. 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.

Towards the end of the Second World War, the 17-year-old Brabham was called up into the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Although keen on becoming a pilot, he was trained as a flight mechanic, based at RAF Williamtown where he worked on maintaining Bristol Beaufighters until the end of the war. Upon demobilisation in 1946 Brabham 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.

Australia

Brabham started racing after an American friend, Johnny Schonberg, persuaded him to watch a midget car race. Midget racing was a category for small open-wheel cars racing on dirt ovals. It was popular in Australia, attracting crowds of up to 40,000. Brabham records that he was not taken with the idea of driving, being convinced that the drivers “were all lunatics” but he agreed to build a car with Schonberg.