During a racing career that spanned the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, Jabouille competed in 55 F1 Grands Prix between 1974 and 1981, making 49 starts and taking two wins. The first of these came at the 1979 French Grand Prix at Dijon, when Renault became the first team to win a race with a turbocharged car, although Jabouille’s achievement was largely overshadowed by the legendary duel for second place between Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux.
His second and final victory came a year later, at the 1980 Austrian Grand Prix. He signed a contract with Ligier for 1981, but a crash at the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix left him with a badly broken leg. Still not fully fit, he eventually joined his new team part-way through the 1981 season, but was a shadow of his former self, and called time on his F1 career after just four races.
Aside from F1, Jabouille was also a regular at the Le Mans 24 Hours, where he first reached the podium in 1973, co-driving a Matra-Simca MS670B with fellow-Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jaussaud, and then again in ’74 with François Migault.