The victory shared with Marc Gené and Alexander Wurz put David Brabham on equal footing with his elder brother Geoff, who won at Le Mans in 1993, also with Peugeot. David first raced at Le Mans in 1992 in a Toyota TS010 and finished in the top five for the first time in 1996 in a McLaren F1 GTR with teammates Pierre-Henri Raphanel and Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, who currently heads the FIA Endurance Committee.

He then drove the spectacular front-engined Panoz for a long spell, winning the second edition of Petit Le Mans in 1999. He first made the 24 Hours podium in 2003 when he came second with two former winners: Mark Blundell and Johnny Herbert. From 2005 onwards, David Brabham truly made his mark on the Le Mans 24 Hours with Aston Martin in the GT class.

Following two ninth places in 2005 and 2006, he went on to win the class twice in a row in 2007 and 2008, coming fifth and thirteenth overall. His regularity won him a seat in a prototype cockpit as factory driver for Peugeot. Brabham subsequently raced with Honda in the American Le Mans Series, winning in 2010, and at Le Mans. He was ninth in LMP2 in 2010 and sixth overall in 2012.

The brothers are the second generation of Brabham racing drivers, their father Jack (1926–2014) having won no less than three Formula One titles. And the legacy continues. Geoff’s son Matthew and David’s son Sam are carving their own careers in feeder series, while, at fifty, David now has a new “baby”: Project Brabham. As team principal, he reached out for support via crowdfunding and it is already proving a success. The team is aiming for the World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours, the discipline and the race that made David Brabham a legend.

Jean-Philippe Doret / ACO — Translated from French by Emma Paulay

Photo: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, LE MANS 24 HOURS, SATURDAY 14 & SUNDAY 15 JUNE 2003. David Brabham’s first Le Mans 24 Hours podium was a second place behind Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Guy Smith, in a one-two for Bentley.