Top Ten Formula One Drivers, 10: Jack Brabham

• Season Points Av. 15.8
• Best Championship Finishes. 1st (x3), 2nd (x1)
• Average Constructor Placing over Career. 3
• 14 wins from 13 poles

After reading Alan Henry's Top F1 Drivers and seeing several internet lists, I have reviewed available footage and season reviews to compile a list, here follows the first in the Top Ten countdown. Just to outline the points, the averages per season will obviously be higher for drivers in seasons with more races, but can be used to compare generationally. In addition the constructor number takes the position in which the team the driver drove for finished each season and averages it over a career to give an indication of the strength of car the driver had on average. Prost and Lauda do not get inside the Top Ten for example, because they should have (in my opinion only) made much more of the cars they had, seen as their average suggests they were almost always in one of the top two cars on the grid. However, issues of who's in or out will be addressed throughout.

Jack Brabham was a highly successful driver who won drivers championships in 1959 and 1960 in Coopers. The 1959 season saw Brabham take two wins from one pole and only one fastest lap all season. Moss suffered a poor early season with DNF's and a DQ, and his 3 poles and wins to finish the season shows what could have been. Yet Brabham did what gets you in history books, finished in the points when not winning to take his first title. In fact this first title came courtesy of him pushing his car over the line to finish fourth in the final GP. 1960 saw a more natural championship victory. In races 4 thru' 8 Brabham notched up five wins from 3 poles. This along with his win to pole stats (14:13) shows him to be a calculated steady racer, rather than the pacier drivers, such as Moss. However, it is Brabham's progress after this second title that puts him above other more expected drivers to fill this tenth spot. In 1962 Brabham set up his own team and raced in his own cars. In his debut season he took home two 4th place finishes. In his second year as a team boss he finished 2nd in Mexico and 3rd in the Constructors championship. Following steady progress Brabham took the drivers and constructors titles in 1966 scoring all the points in both championships, no less remarkable seen as he was 4o years old at the time. In 1967 he beat the supreme Clark to pole twice and won 3 races taking the constructors title and finishing second behind his team-mate in the drivers title, scoring a Brabham one-two. In 69 he scored a pole and several podiums to take second place in the constructors. 1970 was Brabham's final season, in which aged 44 he took a final win at the season opener in South Africa and three other podiums.

Over his career Jack Brabham won three world titles against quicker drivers, such as Hill, Clark and Moss, and therefore deserves his place in the Top Ten. He edges out other similarly crowned champions through the spectacular feat of running his own team, more common then, but also winning his third title in it, something the Fittipaldis or Hill failed to do.