Sir Jack Brabham

In the New Year Honours List John Arthur Brabham became the first man to receive a knighthood for services to motor racing. The Australian, thrice World Champion, won 14 out of 127 World Championship races entered between 1955 and 1970. This pictorial tribute to Brabham begins at top left with his Formula One World Championship debut, in the 1955 British GP at Aintree with the disappointing, fully-streamlined, rear-engined Cooper-Bristol. He retired with engine failure. His first World Championship title came in 1959, when he confirmed the supremacy of rear-engined cars with the Cooper-Climax, in spite of crashing in the Portuguese GP at Porto while lying second, left centre. Victory in the 1960 Portuguese GP, bottom left, helped him to his second Championship, again in a Cooper-Climax. Below, rounding the Karussell at the Nurburgring with his Brabham-Climax, German GP 1965. Right, oversteer on the way to winning the 1966 Dutch GP with a Brabham-Repco BT20. That year he became the first driver to win the World Championship in a car of his own manufacture. His first European victory in a Brabham, a Coventry-Climax-engined BT7, came in the non-Championship Solitude GP of 1963, above right. Brabham’s last GP win – at the age of 44 – was in the 1970 South African event, with a Cosworth-engined 8T33, above centre. He retired at the end of that season.