Formal 1: Jean-Pierre Jabouille is early

Dhe international motor sport mourns the former French Formula 1 driver Jean-Pierre Jabouille. The two-time Grand Prix winner died on Thursday at the age of 80, his family confirmed to the AFP news agency.

Jabouille wrote Formula 1 history in 1979 with his first success in a race in the premier class of automobile sport: His victory in the French Grand Prix meant for his French Renault racing team the first triumph in a race for the Formula 1 World Championship and at the same time also the first victory for a car with a turbo engine. In the following season, the Paris-born racing driver won the Austrian Grand Prix again.

49 races in Formula 1

From 1975 to 1981, Jabouille drove a total of 49 Formula 1 races. Besides Renault, Jabouille also started for Williams, Tyrrell and Ligier-Talbot.

Shortly after the end of his Formula 1 career in 1981 due to the consequences of a broken leg in a serious accident a year earlier at the Canadian Grand Prix, Jabouille returned to motorsport for several years as team boss of the Ligier racing team. As head of sports at Peugeot, the “big blonde”, who in the meantime had tried his hand at running a restaurant in the French capital Paris, even temporarily held a post in Formula 1 again in the 1990s.

Jabouille also impressed as a long-distance driver. In the legendary 24-hour race of Le Mans the veteran didn’t win, but at least made it onto the podium four times.

For the French motorsport scene, Jabouille’s death means the third loss of a well-known personality with a Formula 1 past in just a few weeks. At the beginning of December last year, Patrick Tambay, who was also a two-time Grad Prix winner, died at the age of 73 before the Grand Nation had to say goodbye to Philippe Streiff for Christmas.