Jabouille was born in Paris in 1942. He first made his mark in French Formula Three in 1967 and 1968, maintaining his own car and finishing runner-up to François Cevert in 1968. For 1969, Alpine contracted him as a development driver. He co-drove a Matra to third place overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1973, and repeated the result in 1974 — the same year he won the Formula Neo race at Hockenheim and finished runner-up in the European 2-litre sports car series. His first attempts to qualify for a Formula One race came in 1974, but he failed to make the grid at the French Grand Prix in an Iso-Marlboro and at the Austrian Grand Prix in a Surtees.
In 1975, Jabouille launched his own Formula Two programme with Elf backing, finishing runner-up to Jacques Laffite before finally making his Formula One debut at the French Grand Prix in a Tyrrell. He returned to Formula Two in 1976, this time winning the European title.
In 1977, Renault signed Jabouille to develop their revolutionary 1.5-litre turbocharged Formula One engine — a project that would fundamentally alter the sport. The RS01 debuted at the 1977 British Grand Prix, introducing the turbocharger to Formula One competition for the first time. The early car was fragile and suffered from severe turbo lag, making it particularly difficult to drive on tight circuits, but Jabouille's engineering background meant he could bridge the gap between technical development and feedback from the cockpit. Through 1977 and 1978, he recorded notable qualifying results and scored the team's first championship points with fourth place at the 1978 United States Grand Prix East at Watkins Glen.
The breakthrough came in 1979, when Renault expanded to a two-car operation with René Arnoux joining the team. Jabouille took the team's first Formula One pole position at the South African Grand Prix and then converted pole to victory at the French Grand Prix at Dijon-Prenois — the first win by a turbocharged car in World Championship Formula One. The race also featured a celebrated wheel-to-wheel battle between Arnoux and Gilles Villeneuve for third place that became one of the most replayed moments in the sport's history. Jabouille took two further pole positions that season, at the German and Italian Grands Prix, but reliability denied him additional victories.
In 1980, Jabouille took two more pole positions and won the Austrian Grand Prix for Renault. The season ended badly, however, when a suspension failure during the Canadian Grand Prix caused a substantial accident that left him with a broken leg — just after he had signed a contract with Ligier for the 1981 season.
The injuries forced him to miss the first two races of 1981, and when he returned it became clear he was not yet fully fit: he failed to qualify for two of his four attempts and retired from Formula One at that point. He contested 55 World Championship Grands Prix in total, recording two wins and several pole positions.
After retiring as a driver, Jabouille remained in motorsport. He joined Ligier as team manager in 1982, and in 1984 moved to oversee the team's joint entry with Curb Racing in the CART series in North America. He returned to racing in the mid-1980s in French Supertouring before joining Peugeot's Le Mans programme, culminating in third-place finishes at the 24 Hours in both 1992 and 1993. In 1994, he succeeded Jean Todt as director of Peugeot Sport, a role that ended in 1995 after the manufacturer's Formula One engine supply partnership with McLaren and Jordan produced poor results. He subsequently ran his own sports car team.
Jabouille's legacy rests primarily on the Renault turbo project. His technical aptitude and patience in developing an initially fragile and difficult car through several difficult seasons created the conditions for one of the most transformative technological shifts in Formula One history. The turbocharged engine went on to dominate the sport through the 1980s. Jabouille died on 2 February 2023 at the age of 80.