Jean-Pierre Jabouille died on Thursday February 2 at the age of 80. The French driver won twice in Formula 1, in 1979 and 1980.
Source AFP
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L’Former French racing driver Jean-Pierre Jabouille, architect of Renault’s first victory in Formula 1, died Thursday at the age of 80, we learned from his family, who did not specify the causes. of his death. Jabouille, 49 F1 races to his credit between 1975 and 1981, had won two Grands Prix, in 1979 in France and the following year in Austria.
His first success on the Dijon-Prenois circuit – the first in F1 with a turbocharged engine, a technology that would later become the norm – Jabouille was the craftsman behind it on the track but also in the workshops. Holder of an engineering degree, the native of Paris on 1is October 1942 was an integral part of this laborious project. The engine often broke in billows of white smoke, earning his single-seater the mocking nickname of “yellow tea pot” (yellow teapot).
Both legs broken
The Frenchman has a most surprising record in the premier category with 37 retirements, mainly due to technical problems, 6 pole positions, 3 finishes in points only but 2 victories. In Dijon, in 1979, “I only thought about finishing the race, he told AFP in 2018. I knew we had a chance if we got to the end. It was a great pride because it’s hard to win in F1. A relief also because I had often been in the lead and, each time, I had experienced reliability problems”.
For the “tall blond”, the race stopped shortly after. At the 1980 Canadian GP, a broken suspension sent his Renault into the wall, breaking both of his legs. The accident ended his racing career in motorsport’s premier class. Four times third in the 24 Hours of Le Mans (in 1973, 1974, 1992 and 1993), he was subsequently technical director at Ligier, then took over as head of Peugeot Sport, before creating his own endurance team, Jabouille. – Bouresche Racing.