Jabouille was born on 1 October 1942 in Paris. He first made his mark in French Formula Three in 1967 and continued in 1968, maintaining the car himself on his way to the runner-up spot behind François Cevert. For 1969 he was contracted as a development driver by Alpine, having several disjointed runs in Formula Two and sports cars.
In 1973, he co-drove a Matra to third place at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and repeated this result in 1974, when he also won the Formula neo race at Hockenheim and finished as runner-up in the European 2-litre series for Alpine. He made his first appearances in Formula One that year, failing to qualify an Iso–Marlboro at the French Grand Prix and a Surtees at the Austrian Grand Prix.
In 1975, Jabouille severed his ties with Alpine and gained Elf backing to make his own Formula Two chassis. He finished runner-up to Jacques Laffite but made his full Grand Prix debut, finishing 12th in a works Tyrrell at the French Grand Prix. For 1976, he concentrated on Formula Two and won the title.
Jabouille was signed by Formula One team Renault to develop their new 1.5-litre turbocharged engine for 1977. The RS01 car debuted at the 1977 British Grand Prix, but initially the turbo engine — a first for Formula One — was fragile and suffered from severe turbo lag, making it difficult to drive on tight circuits. Jabouille, who was an engineer by trade, persevered and developed the RS01 throughout, recording several notable qualifying positions in 1978. He scored the marque's first points with fourth place at the United States Grand Prix East at Watkins Glen, a circuit particularly tough on fuel consumption, which was one of the Renault turbo's biggest weaknesses.
In 1979, Renault expanded to run a second car for René Arnoux. Jabouille secured Renault's first Formula One pole position at the South African Grand Prix, then won their first victory — fittingly at the French Grand Prix, also from pole. This was the first victory for a turbocharged car in Formula One. He took two more poles at the German and Italian Grands Prix, but poor reliability meant the French Grand Prix win was his only points score that season.
In 1980, Jabouille took two more poles and won the Austrian Grand Prix. A suspension failure in the Canadian Grand Prix caused a sizeable accident, which left him with a broken leg. The accident occurred just after he had signed with Ligier for 1981.
His injuries saw Jabouille sit out the first two races of the 1981 season. It soon became clear he was not fully fit — he failed to qualify for two of his four attempts — at which point he decided to retire from Formula One. He stayed with Ligier and became team manager in 1982. In 1984, he transferred to Ligier's joint entry with Curb Racing in the 1984 CART series, serving as team manager.
Jabouille returned to racing in the mid-1980s, driving in the French Supertouring Championship before joining Peugeot to help develop their sports car programme at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This culminated in third-place finishes for the marque in both the 1992 and 1993 races — adding to his earlier 1973 and 1974 Le Mans third places, for a total of four third-place overall finishes at that event. In 1994, he succeeded Jean Todt as director of Peugeot Sport. Unsuccessful seasons for Peugeot as engine suppliers in Formula One with McLaren and Jordan saw him sacked in 1995. Following that, he ran his own sports car team in the ISRS.
Jabouille died on 2 February 2023 at the age of 80.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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