Jean-Pierre Jabouille, who died yesterday (2 February 2023) at the age of 80, will forever be remembered as the first man to win a Formula One Grand Prix in a turbocharged car.
The Frenchman’s victory in his home race at Dijon in 1979 was also Renault’s breakthrough, on Michelin tyres, and with Elf plastered across his RS10’s nose and oil running through it.
Yet, despite all that, everyone’s attention then and ever since was on the battle for second place as his teammate René Arnoux went bargeboard to bargeboard with Ferrari’s Gilles Villeneuve lap after lap.
Jabouille takes the chequer for a famous win in France on 1 July 1979
It had been a long and difficult journey to that point for Jabouille, the turbocharged project he’d been an integral part of for two years having more misses than hits, and he’d finally claimed the Formula Two title at the eighth time of asking in 1976.
He did so as a Grand Prix driver after making his debut in 1975 at Paul Ricard with Tyrrell, thanks to his Elf ties. He’d failed to qualify an Iso Williams and Surtees the year before.
