David Brabham (born 5 September 1965) is an Australian professional racing driver and one of the most successful and experienced specialists in sports car racing.
He has won three international Sports Car series and is one of four Australians to have won the Le Mans 24 Hour sports car race, winning the event in 2009. Brabham won the American Le Mans Series in 2009 and 2010. He also competed in Formula One, racing for the Brabham and Simtek teams in 1990 and 1994 respectively. Brabham is the youngest son of three-time Formula One world champion Sir Jack Brabham, brother to Geoff Brabham and Gary Brabham. He is also brother-in-law to Mike Thackwell, father to Sam Brabham and uncle to Matthew Brabham. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Although born in Wimbledon, London, the family moved to Sydney when he was six and, despite his father Jack’s motor racing fame and success, he had no interest in racing and “was more interested in learning how to run the family farm.” He took up football, then Australian rules football, but in his early teens learnt to drift a motorbike and truck sideways; on one occasion he misjudged a gateway and crashed his elder brother Geoff’s Mazda 626 into a post. It was only after discovering karts at 17, and buying a second hand one with a friend, that he started racing. He had originally asked his father for help in buying one, telling how “Dad almost fell off his chair. He didn’t think I was that competitive and just said, ‘Where the hell did that idea come from?’” Despite his father seemingly showing no interest, as he and his friend were about to drive off for a first test with the kart, Jack put his head in the car window and said, ‘S’pose I’d better come with you.” “When we got there Dad put a few bits of stuff on the track edge to show us turn-in points, and I jumped on this kart and was fast straight away. It was like a duck to water.”
His professional career began in 1983, towing his kart to races behind a Ford Falcon, and after racing them for two years he moved into the Ford Laser series for 1985. In 1986 he contested Formula Ford, then had a Formula Atlantic test which led to a ride in the Tasman Series, with Mike Thackwell as team-mate; the two would eventually be related when David married Mike’s sister. In 1987, the Australian Drivers’ Championship was held as a single race rather than a series of rounds and was a support race at the Australian Grand Prix. After starting 38th, due to carburettor and electrical problems with his Ralt RT30 during qualifying, he caught and passed the race leader on lap 13 of the 15 lap race and took victory.
During the year he also competed in both the New Zealand and American Formula Atlantic series plus contested South American F3. His brother Gary was supposed to do some South American F3 rounds but had to pull out so David took over the drive, racing at Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Porto Alegre and although he had mechanical problems each time, described it as a great experience. Eventually moving to Europe, with sponsorship from Camel in 1989, he joined the Bowman team and went on to win the British F3 Championship. During the year he contested the prestigious Macau GP, which featured a grid including Schumacher, Häkkinen, Irvine, Wendlinger, Frentzen, Zanardi and Gachot. In the two heats, he finished second to Michael Schumacher and in the second took the lead from Schumacher and won the overall victory.
The following year saw his debut in Formula One, with the Brabham team, though he missed the first two races in order to prepare himself and his first race came at San Marino, where he failed to qualify. It would be a disappointing season as in 14 races he retired the uncompetitive car seven times, failed to qualify six times and finished once, 15th at Paul Ricard. However, they had no testing and he and team mate Stefano Modena just used to meet at the races; he told how, due to superstition, Stefano raced with one glove on inside out.
In 1991 he had several F3000 races with the Roni Ralt team and then Tom Walkinshaw asked him to drive one of his Jaguar KJR15s in a support race race at the Monaco GP (where he qualified fourth and finished second). He signed with the TWR team following this and described it as “a fantastic environment to be in. Tom as team boss was tough, a man of few words, but everything was properly organised. And Ross Brawn was running the cars: he was just brilliant. Very quiet, very methodical, very supportive. It was the first time I’d ever been in a team with proper structures, knowing the plan, knowing what we had to achieve in each practice session, in each race stint. It saved my life.” There were victories and podiums at Sugo, the Nurburgring, Magny-Cours and Autopolis plus a victory in the Spa 24 Hours, co-driving a Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R with Naoki Hattori and Anders Olofsson.
He drove for TWR in 1992’s Daytona 24 Hours, finishing second overall, but then Jaguar pulled out of the series. However, he was signed by Toyota and competed in his first Le Mans 24 Hour race with them plus had podium finishes at Donington and Suzuka alongside G.Lees and J.Lammers. The 1993 season was a barren one, racing a Bud Light Jaguar at Daytona and for TWR at Le Mans with David Coulthard and John Nielsen.
There was a return to Formula One in 1994, this time with Simtek (the small team only employed 35 people, the least number of the teams competing during 1994) and he finished twelfth in the first GP in Brazil, but retired at Aida with electrical issues. Sadly, then came Imola where team mate Roland Ratzenberger was tragically killed during qualifying. David later commented “I lost a close friend yesterday. Though team-mates for a mere few weeks, we had already a lot of fun together and had every reason to look forward to a great year with the Simtek team. I am confident that the greatest tribute we can pay to Roland is to race today, hence my decision.” He stated “Simtek was a small team, and Roland’s death was devastating. Nobody knew what to do. They were totally demoralised, finished. That evening Nick Wirth said to me, ‘What do you want to do about the race tomorrow? It’s up to you.’ They put the onus on me. I didn’t know what to think, my mind was all over the place…The usual thing for a team in that situation, when one of their drivers has been killed, is to withdraw. But I said, ‘Let’s just do the warm-up, then we’ll see how we feel.’ In the warm-up I was 18th fastest, which was quick for us-normally we were much further down. When I came into the pits I sensed this heavy cloud had lifted from the team, we’d made the first step towards recovery. If Roland had been sitting there I know he’d have said, ‘What the hell are you doing? Of course you must race!’ So I did.” David ran well until going off at the Variante Bassa, apparently caused by a steering problem but Ayrton Senna’s death overshadowed everything else that day. He continued through the season, alongside four different teammates, and was very lucky to escape from a heavy accident while testing at Silverstone; ’when it all finally stopped I was upside down against the fences, but there was enough room for me to unbuckle, take off the wheel and crawl out from under.”
He left Formula One at the end of the year and began touring car racing in 1995 in a BMW in the BTCC alongside Johnny Cecotto. There was success in 1996 in the All-Japan GT Championship with a McLaren GTR, beating Ralf Schumacher to win the series and in the following year he and brother Geoff won the Bathurst 1000. Then came six years driving a Panoz (“a front-engined Batmobile “), winning the Professional Sports Car Championship in America in 1998 and 1999’s Petit Le Mans race. He said of it, it “was the noisiest, hottest car I’d ever driven. James Weaver, who was also in the team, said driving it made him lose the will to live. And it wasn’t an easy car to get a time out of. You were sitting on top of the rear axle line, and it moved around like a bucking horse. But when you think how bizarre the thing was, we did pretty well with it.
He drove in 1998 for DAMS (with Eric Bernard) and for Panoz in America (with Andy Wallace and Doc Bundy) and had victories at Lime Rock and Sebring plus podiums at Las Vegas, Sebring, Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, Hockenheim, Dijon, Mosport and Laguna Seca. 1999 saw further victories and podiums at Mosport, Sears Point, Portland and Petit Le Mans and there followed several seasons racing alongside Jan Magnussen, taking with wins and podiums through that period at Charlotte, Silverstone, the Nurburgring, Texas, Portland, Petit Le Mans, Sears Point, Mosport, Mid-Ohio and Washington. He described how “Jan and I had a completely different approach. He was happy to spend his nights in some club getting trashed, but he was very quick, and we respected each other. He’d be lounging against the pit counter, sucking away at his fag, I’d come in after two hours of setting the car up, he’d stamp out his fag, clamber in the car, dump the clutch and drive the wheels off it.”
At the end of 2002 the Panoz team closed down and he signed for Bentley for the following season, taking podiums alongside J.Herbert and M.Blundell in the Bentley Speed 8 at Sebring and Le Mans. Before racing with them, he had finished fourth in the 24 Hour Daytona race with Multimatic tand later contested a number of races with Prodrive’s Ferrari 550. Further races in a Ferrari 500 the next year saw wins at the Bahrein GT Festival plus he also raced a Saleen S7-R, Zytek 04S and a Lamborghini Murcielago. It was also the first of four consecutive Le Mans starts racing Aston Martin DBR9s, finishing ninth overall and third in the GT1 Class, in 2006 finishing fourth in the GT1 category, then won the GT1 class in 2007 and 2008.
There had been a return to a Panoz cockpit for a number of races in 2006 and during this period he raced an Acura for Patron Highcroft for several seasons, taking podiums between 2008 -2010 for them (alongside S.Johansson, S.Sharp, S.Pagenaud and D.Franchitti) at St.Petersburg, Long Beach, Road America, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca, Mosport and wins at Lime Rock, St.Petersburg, Road America, Mosport, Long Beach, Laguna Seca and Miller. In 2009 as Highcroft were not going to Le Mans, he was placed by Peugeot in their third 908 (alongside Alex Wurz and Marc Gene) and told how “the other two cars were quicker, but we just drove a perfect, reliable, clean race, and we won by over a lap. I’ve had a lot of high points, but that one was the icing on the cake.”
He, Pagenaud and Franchitti were second early in 2011 with an HRD ARX-01 at Sebring and he then raced with Sumo Power GT for the FIA GT1 World Championship (paired with Jamie Campbell-Walter in a Nissan GT-R). He continued with the HPD ARX over the next few seasons and contested the Blancpain Endurance Series in 2012 in United Autosport’s McLaren MP4-12C. In his time in ALMS, he won 23 events across all four classes and was champion twice, taking the LMP1 title in 2009 and LMP title in 2010.
After pursuing legal action, the Brabham trademark reverted to the family’s ownership in 2013 and the following year Project Brabham was announced, with the goal of setting up a motor racing team and the initial start-up of the project was run via crowdfunding. David ran the MSA’s young driver development and education programme for six years, as National Race Coach plus he raised more than £400,000 in 15 years with Racing4Charity.
2018 saw the the launch of Brabham Automotive (with David as Managing Director) and their Brabham BT62, a mid-engined track car. When he drove it at the Phillip Island circuit in Victoria, he smashed the track record.
