Gary Brabham

Gary Brabham (29 March 1961 - Present): British-born Australian racing driver from Wimbledon, London, son of three-time Formula One World Champion Sir Jack Brabham and brother of Le Mans winners Geoff and David Brabham. Competed in two Formula One races in 1990 with the disastrous Life team, debuting at the United States Grand Prix in Phoenix. His Formula One opportunity came with Life, widely regarded as one of the worst teams in F1 history, which failed to pre-qualify for a single race in its lone season of existence. At Phoenix, only managed a time of 2:07.

147 from four laps before suffering an engine misfire, finishing approximately 35 seconds off the pace—a performance gap highlighting the Life car's complete lack of competitiveness. At the Brazilian Grand Prix, managed only 400 meters before the car broke down, and with the car remaining unfixed, no qualifying time was set. At this point, Brabham wisely decided to leave the team, not wanting to completely ruin his career prospects with continued association with the hopeless project. His two Formula One starts both resulted in failures to pre-qualify, making his F1 'career' one of the sport's briefest and least successful.

Despite this Formula One disappointment, found success elsewhere in motorsport. For the remainder of 1990, raced in International Formula 3000 for Middlebridge Racing in their Lola-Mugen T89/50, collecting two third-place finishes at Monza and Enna, demonstrating his ability with competitive machinery. Won the 1991 12 Hours of Sebring for Nissan alongside his brother Geoff, achieving significant success in endurance racing. His Formula One career serves as a cautionary tale about joining financially troubled teams with uncompetitive machinery, but his subsequent racing achievements proved he possessed genuine talent that was simply wasted on the Life project.

Member of one of motorsport's most famous families, carrying the Brabham name that dominated Formula One in the 1960s.