Gary Brabham Born In London, England - March 29, 1961

March 29, 1961

Gary Brabham

(Photo; brabham.co.uk)

Born in Wimbledon, London, England.

He is the son of three time World Formula One Champion Sir Jack Brabham, and the brother of Le Mans winners Geoff and David Brabham. He is also the uncle of Geoff's son Matthew who has also taken up motor racing.

Despite hopes from his mother that he would avoid the motor racing scene altogether, he grew up on a diet of Formula Ford in both Australia and the UK. Originally, he was content to be a farmer in rural New South Wales. But, he had inherited the racing bug, made his racing debut in 1982, finishing his first race at Calder Park Raceway in 3rd, despite being in a nine-year old car. He later broke the Formula Ford lap record at the Sandown Raceway in the same car.

After winning the British Formula 3000 championship in 1989, his solitary Formula One opportunity came with one of the worst Grand Prix team efforts in the history of the sport, the troubled Life project. He failed to qualify for two Formula One Grands Prix with Life, a team that failed to qualify for all 14 of its attempts during the 1990 season. Brabham was the second-slowest qualifier at Phoenix and the engine gave up after only 400 meters in Brazil. After those two races, it was clear that no improvement was forthcoming, Brabham promptly quit the team in disgust. Brabham’s career never fully recovered.

For the remainder of 1990, Brabham raced in F3000 for Middlebridge Racing in their Lola-Mugen T89/50, collecting two third places at Monza and Enna. However, his bad luck continued as he failed to qualify for Pau and Birmingham. He returned to Australia for the Eastern Creek 500, teaming up with his brother, David in a Ford Sierra RS500 for Frank Gardner’s. The brothers finished 4th.

In 1991, he went Stateside to the IMSA championship, and drove for Nissan Performance Technology at the Sebring 12 Hours, along his other brother Geoff, and Irishman, Derek Daly. Starting from pole, they won the race, in their Nissan NPT-90. This victory did not open anymore doors, Brabham settled for a series of one-off drives.

Brabham did accept an invitation from NPTI to race in the IMSA Endurance races, alongside Daly and Steve Millen at Daytona, recording a DNF while running in third. At Sebring, the winning team from 1991, were joined by Arie Luyendyk. They came close to defending the title, finishing 2nd.

In 1993 and 1994, he raced in CART, becoming the first Australian driver to race the Gold Coast Indycar street race before retiring from racing. In 1995 he started to teach advanced driver training for celebrities competing in the Australian and British GP celebrity races. His pupils have included Rowan Atkinson and Captain Mark Phillips.