Jordan

You never knew what he was going to say next. This, depending on the circumstances, could be either the worry or the joy of dealing with Eddie Jordan. It was usually the latter, given his love of being a renegade with a fast tongue; a chancer with an eye for the main opportunity – and ones you’d never dream of.

EJ was a loveable rascal who proudly played the Irish card to the limit. Conversations would nearly always end with a grin, either because of his twinkling humour, or through your sense of disbelief at the outrageous nature of machine-gun comments made with that lilting brogue. The only time to worry was when he spoke quietly through the side of his mouth. That usually meant he was up to no good. And yet you would wonder at the audacity of the latest plan, admire the chutzpah. It’s not an exaggeration to say there was never a dull moment when Edmund Patrick Jordan was in your presence.

Friday breakfasts for the British Formula 1 media outside the Benson & Hedges Jordan motorhome would be a perfect example. EJ usually arrived not long after the bacon and eggs had been served. The canvas awning would be whipped back. Quickly sizing up his captive audience, Eddie would begin hurling insults at the nearest table while jabbing a finger at the next as his voice rose in company with the bawdy invective. Ribald responses from his guests would be grist to the Jordan mill. For a quick thinker such as EJ, this was pure theatre. For regular members of the media circus, giving as good as you got – or trying to – became a fortnightly ritual.

Such a rowdy assembly was unique, certainly in F1 if not in the wider world of sport. Proof came one morning when a journalist new to F1 was invited along. Not having been warned about the impending verbal tsunami, the poor man at first went pale and then looked aghast as his host’s insults rose in crescendo and indecency. It had to be explained that this was how Jordan used slagging as a term of endearment and raised it to an art form.

Underlying the blarney would be a profound sense of decency. On the weekend of the 1998 Hungarian Grand Prix, I happened to be with EJ in the Jordan motorhome when news came through of the Omagh bombing, the worst atrocity in the so-called Troubles. Appalled and shocked, we watched in silence. The fact that we were from opposite sides of the Irish border may have induced perpetual insults in the past. On this occasion, it added to a deep sense of sadness for the island of Ireland. At least eight members and associates of the Jordan team were of Irish extraction.

Eddie was moved to tears when he later received a letter from a surgeon, telling the story of a young patient, Alister Hall, who had lost a leg in the explosion at Omagh. When Alister came round, the first thing he wanted to know was how Jordan had got on during qualifying in Hungary. A couple of weekends later, Damon Hill and Eddie were playing in a charity golf match in the south of Ireland. Jordan arranged for the pair to fly north in a friend’s helicopter and land at Altnagelvin Hospital, a major facility dealing with many of the Omagh casualties, including Hall. It was a low-key visit but the effect was huge.

“We found Alister and also visited other kids who had lost limbs,” said EJ. “They were overjoyed. Typical of children, these brave patients did not think they were as ill as they obviously were. It made us realise that there are much harder battles being fought than anything we might endure in our sport.”

There was never a dull moment with Jordan around

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Jordan raised millions for CLIC Sargent, a charity focusing on cancer in children and young people. He did it by cajoling the good and the great from motor racing and the world of music to take part and donate to charity events. It was no coincidence that these occasions were filled with ‘great craic’ – as EJ would say when describing the good time had by all when parting with money.

Jordan would use the same modus operandi when dealing with sponsors, his search for finance breath-taking in its effrontery and dexterity, a potent mix of self-assurance and sleight of hand. His love of the deal was matched by a passion for the sport and everything associated with it.

F1 in the 1990s and Eddie Jordan were made for each other. I saw that at close hand when writing a fly-on-the-wall account of his season in 1993. It was a difficult year, Jordan failing to score a single point until the penultimate round in Japan. But at no stage did Eddie exercise the power of veto even though, at times, there were anxious looks across the garage as I noted a self-inflicted setback. Being party to this intimate record of his team’s struggle was intriguing in itself, but the best bit came at a book signing in Dublin.

The Eddie Jordan effect: You never knew what was coming next but you understood it would be extraordinary

The queue went round the block – much to the consternation of the shop owner who ran out of books and had to dispatch staff to inveigle copies from other bookshops in town. The banter from Jordan was non-stop, regardless of the customer’s age or gender. An attractive lady, while proffering her copy for signing, made the mistake of saying she had known Eddie back in his teenage years. Eddie looked up. “Ah, sure!” he grinned. “I remember you. In the back of a Cortina, wasn’t it? Down on Dollymount Strand?” The woman rolled her eyes at the reference to a local beach well-known for activities other than swimming. “Y’a haven’t bloody changed!” she replied, before roaring with laughter.

Five years later, at another book launch in Dublin, he had indeed remained the same – apart from appearing in a purple suit with matching suede boots. This was a better managed affair in the function room of a smart hotel. Eddie made a speech – try stopping him – in which, ever the opportunist, he managed to slide in a mention of a deal just signed with a new Irish sponsor.

Apart from the interminable flow of Guinness, I remember the evening for another reason. Earlier, during a difficult year, Jordan had taken its first GP win at Spa. Vincent Logan of the The Irish Independent had been covering an All-Ireland semi-final at Dublin’s Croke Park on that day. He said you could sense a gradual buzz as word began to spread that the Jordan team – the home team; EJ’s team – was actually doing well. People were listening on their radios and, by the end of the race, the frisson of excitement had become an electric charge surging through the entire ground. Logan said he had never experienced anything like it.

That was the Eddie Jordan effect. You never knew what was coming next. But you understood it would be extraordinary, one way or the other. It was a privilege to have been part of such a brilliant, vibrant journey.

F1 paid its respects to Jordan’s passing at last weekend’s Chinese GP

Photo by: Aston Martin

Eddie Jordan Racing became a big player in junior single-seaters prior to the Jordan squad arriving in Formula 1 in 1991.

Before becoming the Midland-owned MF1 Racing for 2006, Jordan built up a cult following, helped launch the careers of several drivers and briefly became a championship contender.

Here’s our choice of the squad’s finest moments.

10. Winning the 1987 British F3 title

Victory at Silverstone part of early flurry of wins for Herbert en route to British F3 crown

Photo by: Getty Images

Eddie Jordan Racing had come close to the British F3 title before – most notably with Martin Brundle in 1983 – but hadn’t quite made it. Until, that was, Jordan signed Johnny Herbert to drive his Dave Benbow-engineered Reynard-Volkswagen for the 1987 campaign.

Herbert took pole by over a second at the Thruxton opener, won by more than seven seconds despite a poor start, and added three more victories over the next four races. Thereafter the opposition caught up and Herbert was limited to only one win over the remaining 13 rounds but, by then, he was realistically too far ahead.

Herbert actually clinched the title in inauspicious circumstances. He clashed with poleman Bertrand Gachot on the opening lap of the penultimate round at Spa, won by Damon Hill, but still ended the day out of reach of rivals Thomas Danielsson and Gachot.

“Eddie Jordan finally quashed a jinx and took a most deserved title,” reported Autosport. “The team could not have chosen a more competitive year to break its F3 duck.”

That success also set up both Herbert and EJR for the 1988 International F3000 season, in which they gave Reynard a debut victory in the Jerez season opener…

INSIGHT: Johnny Herbert on Eddie Jordan

9. Alesi’s 1989 F3000 crown

Race winner Alesi leads team-mate Donnelly at pivotal Pau F3000 round

Photo by: Sutton Images

By 1989, EJR was one of the major F3000 players and had Jean Alesi (after a disappointing rookie campaign) and Martin Donnelly (already a race winner) lined up to drive the Camel-backed Reynards.

Donnelly initially had the edge on pace but had engine trouble at the opener and then lost Vallelunga victory after being disqualified for using a revised nosecone. Instead, Alesi got his first win in round three at Pau, after the duo had set the same qualifying time, on a weekend Autosport described as “undoubtedly the turning point of the year”.

More misfortune for Donnelly, combined with consistent scoring for Alesi and a challenge from the DAMS team, meant the Briton was never a title contender. Although Donnelly beat Alesi in an EJR 1-2 at Brands Hatch, the Frenchman reeled off wins at Birmingham’s Superprix and Spa. He sealed the deal with sixth at Le Mans, round nine of 10.

“EJR got the job done and claimed its biggest championship success since the team’s formation,” concluded Autosport.

Alesi’s career had been resurrected to such a degree that he skipped the final round to compete in the Japanese Grand Prix for Tyrrell, having finished fourth on his debut in France. Not for the first or last time, Jordan had helped the career of a future F1 winner.

INSIGHT: Top 10 F1 one-hit wonders

8. 1991 Canadian GP, Montreal

Gachot followed team-mate de Cesaris home for Jordan’s breakthrough double points-scoring finish in Montreal

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Having run Eddie Irvine (who won a round) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (who didn’t) in F3000 during 1990, Jordan stepped into F1 with the experienced Andrea de Cesaris and Gachot the following year.

Gary Anderson’s Ford HB-powered 191 was a good car, a fact that was underlined as early as round five of the 1991 campaign. De Cesaris, who arguably never drove better than when he was at Jordan, qualified 11th for the Canadian GP, with Gachot 14th.

Both made early stops after their initial tyre choice proved too soft in the opening stint, but then steadily rose up the order.

Despite starting to lose gears, de Cesaris held his nerve to run fifth in the closing stages, with Gachot just behind having survived a spin and nursing his own gearbox gremlins. Both then moved up a spot when leader Nigel Mansell’s Williams famously stopped on the final lap.

“The result says a lot about the people in our team and the companies we work with,” said Jordan after his team’s first F1 points finishes. “Hopefully we can now look forward to leaving pre-qualifying behind us.”

As a newcomer, Jordan had to pre-qualify for a chance to make it onto the 26-car grid in the first half of the season but easily did well enough to avoid having to do so in the latter half of the campaign.

INSIGHT: Best looking F1 cars

7. 1994 Pacific GP, Aida

Barrichello celebrates after delivering the Jordan squad’s first Formula 1 podium

Photo by: Sutton Images

This could have been an entry on the 1993 European GP at Donington Park. One of Ayrton Senna’s greatest drives, the race also showcased the talents of another Brazilian.

INSIGHT: Ayrton Senna’s greatest F1 drives

In just his third world championship GP, Rubens Barrichello rose from 12th to briefly run second in the rain-hit race. He was holding third with less than 10 minutes to go when his Jordan 193’s fuel pressure dropped and he was classified 10th.

Fortunately, the future Ferrari driver would still give Jordan its first F1 podium. After a couple of tough years, Jordan was stronger in 1994 and Barrichello made a great start from eighth to run fifth over a dramatic opening lap in the Pacific GP at Aida.

He rose to fourth when Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren had its second clash with a Williams in the race, resulting in a spin for Hill. Hill soon repassed the Jordan but Barrichello was aided when Hakkinen finally retired with gearbox trouble.

The Jordan briefly rose as high as second amid the pitstops but was running a more representative fourth when Hill’s transmission failed. Under pressure from Martin Brundle’s faster McLaren, Barrichello briefly stalled at his second stop but got third back again when the McLaren’s Peugeot engine cried enough.

Barrichello finished a lap down and had needed some luck but, in the team’s 50th GP, that first podium was still very much deserved.

6. 1994 Belgian GP, Spa

Tense wait at Spa for Barrichello and Jordan, watching the timing screen ahead of confirmation of pole position

Photo by: Sutton Images

Amid F1’s tumultuous 1994 season, Jordan’s 194 was often in the hunt for points and Barrichello became a consistent top-10 contender in qualifying following the San Marino crash that put him in hospital. Fifth on the grid in Spain was his best when the F1 circus headed to Spa, which included a crude chicane at Eau Rouge following the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Senna at Imola.

A wet-but-drying Friday qualifying session gave Barrichello the chance to top the times. He did so by gambling on slicks in the closing moments of the session as the track was at its driest. He stopped the clock in 2m21.163s to beat Michael Schumacher’s Benetton by 0.331s, while the wets-shod Jordan of Irvine was fourth, 0.911s off pole.

“The new chicane and the Bus Stop were really slippery, but slicks were the right way to go,” said Barrichello. “Just.”

Saturday qualifying was wet and Barrichello had to wait it out before his – and Jordan’s – first F1 pole was confirmed. “Watching that screen was more tiring than driving,” he said. “I wasn’t going to run because I didn’t want to help dry the track.”

Barrichello made a good start in the GP but fell to third on the opening lap. He continued to drop back in the dry race, partly due to being fuelled heavy for a planned one-stop strategy, and later spun off, but another milestone had already been reached.

5. 1999 French GP, Magny-Cours

Clever strategy at a wet Magny-Cours helped Frentzen deliver the Jordan team’s second GP victory

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Jordan brought the best out of Frentzen and a combination of the 199’s pace and mistakes at Ferrari and McLaren kept the German in 1999 title contention. A clever strategy in a rain-affected Magny-Cours contest helped Frentzen to his – and Jordan’s – second GP victory.

A wet qualifying session had caught out the top runners and Frentzen lined up fifth, with the Stewart of Barrichello and Alesi’s Sauber on the front row. Frentzen, still recovering from a nasty shunt in Canada, moved up to fourth on a dry opening lap and gained another spot when David Coulthard’s leading McLaren broke.

Frentzen lost out to a flying Hakkinen – up from 14th – on lap 15 of 72, before rain arrived. As the field came in for wet tyres and the safety car was summoned, Alesi skated off, so that Frentzen was third at the restart.

That became second when Hakkinen spun trying to take the lead, only for Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari to come by on its way to the front. But the Ferrari soon hit electrical trouble, elevating Frentzen until Hakkinen again overtook him in a roller-coaster race.

On lap 65 both new leader Hakkinen and Barrichello came in for their final fuel stops. But Frentzen did not – Jordan had fuelled him heavily at his stop to change to wet tyres and was taking a gamble.

The team was concerned Frentzen wouldn’t make it to the flag, but that long safety car period when the conditions were at their worst helped and the Jordan crossed the line 11.1s ahead of Hakkinen.

4. 2003 Brazilian GP, Interlagos

The saga of Fisichella’s fortuitous win at a chaotic Interlagos in 2003 included parc ferme fire

Photo by: Brousseau Photo

Jordan’s decline, with tricky financial and engine situations, was swift and the EJ13 was the second-worst car on the 2003 grid. But another strategy gamble at the Brazilian GP resulted in Jordan scoring its fourth and final F1 victory before it morphed into MF1 Racing, Spyker, Force India, Racing Point and then Aston Martin.

Giancarlo Fisichella qualified an impressive eighth but the first crucial move was Jordan bringing in both him and team-mate Ralph Firman Jr during an early safety car period in the wet conditions to fuel them as long as possible. That put them at the back.

They were still there when Firman suffered a front suspension failure that pitched his Jordan off and he narrowly missed his team-mate. But Fisichella survived and stayed out during the ensuing safety car and round of stops.

Amid concerns that the single-spec wet tyres couldn’t cope with the worst of the conditions, many drivers crashed, including Juan Pablo Montoya and reigning world champion Schumacher. The latter’s Ferrari accident brought out the safety car once more and the race was only briefly green before Jenson Button crashed and full-course yellows flew again.

By the time home hero Barrichello overtook Coulthard’s McLaren for the lead on lap 45, Fisichella had risen to fifth. And when the leading Ferrari ran out of fuel – the legacy of a misfire and telemetry failure – the Jordan moved up again, with Fisichella challenging the Williams of Ralf Schumacher for third.

Both DC and Ralf had to pit for fuel and suddenly Fisichella was challenging Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren for the lead! When Raikkonen made a small error on lap 54, a Jordan led a GP for the first time in two years.

Raikkonen repassed Fisichella shortly before the race was red-flagged following Fernando Alonso’s huge crash. Raikkonen was initially announced as the winner, while Fisichella’s car set itself briefly on fire(!), but an FIA investigation following a Jordan appeal showed that the results should have been declared at the end of lap 54 – the one lap on which the Italian was ahead.   

Jordan hadn’t scored a podium finish for more than two years and would manage only one more in F1. Tiago Monteiro was the best non-Ferrari in the farcical 2005 United States GP in which only six Bridgestone-shod cars started thanks to Michelin tyre concerns.

INSIGHT: Top 10 worst F1 cars to win a GP

3. 1991 Belgian GP, Spa

Schumacher’s sensational Spa debut – and blink-of-an-eye tenure at Jordan – now the stuff of F1 legend

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Michael Schumacher’s arrival – as a replacement for the imprisoned Gachot – has passed into F1 folklore and is probably the most famous example of Jordan giving a young driver an opportunity.

Gachot had sprayed a London taxi driver with CS gas and was refused bail to compete at his home GP, so Jordan needed a driver to join de Cesaris.

Many thought Schumacher had raced at Spa before but he hadn’t. The 22-year-old Mercedes sportscar star was nevertheless eighth fastest in his first F1 qualifying session and improved to seventh on Saturday (after Riccardo Patrese was penalised for no operative reverse gear on his Williams). According to Autosport, Schumacher drove the 191 “at a rate it had not encountered before”.

Schumacher’s debut was short because his clutch failed on lap one. There are those who think he could have won. Given the drama that unfolded at the front of the field and the fact that de Cesaris was only 3.5s behind an ailing Senna with three laps to go when his engine failed, that’s not as fanciful as it sounds.

But Schumacher had done enough anyway. “It may seem ridiculous already to speak of him as ‘a special talent’,” wrote Roebuck. “But, just once in a while, you get a feeling about a new driver, an impression that this is the start of a major career.”

By the next event, Schumacher was at Benetton and would take the first of his 91 wins at Spa just a year later.

PLUS: Michael Schumacher’s top 10 F1 wins

2. 1999 Italian GP, Monza

Frentzen’s victory at Monza helped elevate him to world championship contention

Photo by: Sutton Images

This race wasn’t as exciting as the Magny-Cours contest the same year or as dramatic as the 2003 Brazilian GP, but it was the only time a Jordan won a world championship F1 race in the dry. And, for the two weeks between Frentzen’s Monza victory and his 199’s failure on lap 33 of the European GP, it was the one time a Jordan driver genuinely seemed a title contender.

Frentzen qualified second, albeit nearly half a second behind the rapid Hakkinen. Come the race, he ran comfortably ahead of the struggling Ferraris and the McLaren of Coulthard, but leader Hakkinen seemed out of reach, 8s up the road at half-distance.

That was until the Finn selected first gear instead of second and spun off at the first chicane. While Hakkinen walked off to cry in the bushes, Frentzen drove to victory, putting him just 10 points behind Hakkinen and Irvine with three rounds to go.

The race itself was perhaps not as memorable as some on this list, but Frentzen’s emergence as a championship challenger stands as an undoubted high-water mark in Jordan’s history.

“Isn’t it incredible?” said Frentzen. “I can’t believe I have a chance of winning the world title.”

When Frentzen put his Jordan on pole next time out at the Nurburgring, everyone started to wonder what might be possible. He led the race too, but electrical failure put Frentzen out and he eventually finished third in the standings.

1. 1998 Belgian GP, Spa

Hill leads team-mate Schumacher ahead of emotional 1-2 finish in tumultuous Belgian GP

Photo by: Sutton Images

Jordan took an emotional first victory in one of F1’s most famous races, on its 127th start and scored a 1-2. It had to top this list.

Despite the arrival of 1996 world champion Hill, Jordan struggled at the start of the new narrow-car/grooved-tyre F1 era in 1998. But the 198 rapidly improved and an inspired Hill qualified third at Spa.

On a wet race day, both Hill and team-mate Ralf Schumacher managed to survive the infamous lap-one crash triggered by Coulthard that led to a restart almost an hour later. Hill grabbed the early lead and, although he succumbed to Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari on lap eight of 44, was soon well clear of the rest.

After the first round of stops, and with 24 laps completed, the Ferrari was 37s ahead of Hill, who had a 10s cushion over Ralf. The second Jordan had climbed the field nicely from eighth on the grid, boosted by an earlier stop to change from intermediate tyres to wets than many of the other frontrunners.

When Michael Schumacher crashed into the back of Coulthard as the Ferrari attempted to lap the McLaren, Hill moved back into the lead. He was 14s ahead when Ralf dived in for his second stop but lost most of his advantage when an unsighted Fisichella smashed into Shinji Nakano and brought out the safety car.

The race restarted with 12 laps to go – and Hill being very firm over the radio about any possibility of his team-mate being allowed to attack. Ralf was told to hold station and Hill duly reeled off the laps to give Eddie Jordan an emotional first win as an F1 team boss.

PLUS: Damon Hill’s greatest drives

Hill jumps for joy while Schumacher attempts to keep his feelings over Jordan team orders to himself

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Eddie Jordan Racing became a big player in junior single-seaters prior to the Jordan squad arriving in Formula 1 in 1991.

Before becoming the Midland-owned MF1 Racing for 2006, Jordan built up a cult following, helped launch the careers of several drivers and briefly became a championship contender.

Here’s our choice of the squad’s finest moments.

10. Winning the 1987 British F3 title

Victory at Silverstone part of early flurry of wins for Herbert en route to British F3 crown

Photo by: Getty Images

Eddie Jordan Racing had come close to the British F3 title before – most notably with Martin Brundle in 1983 – but hadn’t quite made it. Until, that was, Jordan signed Johnny Herbert to drive his Dave Benbow-engineered Reynard-Volkswagen for the 1987 campaign.

Herbert took pole by over a second at the Thruxton opener, won by more than seven seconds despite a poor start, and added three more victories over the next four races. Thereafter the opposition caught up and Herbert was limited to only one win over the remaining 13 rounds but, by then, he was realistically too far ahead.

Herbert actually clinched the title in inauspicious circumstances. He clashed with poleman Bertrand Gachot on the opening lap of the penultimate round at Spa, won by Damon Hill, but still ended the day out of reach of rivals Thomas Danielsson and Gachot.

“Eddie Jordan finally quashed a jinx and took a most deserved title,” reported Autosport’s Tony Dodgins. “The team could not have chosen a more competitive year to break its F3 duck.”

That success also set up both Herbert and EJR for the 1988 International F3000 season, in which they gave Reynard a debut victory in the Jerez season opener…

INSIGHT: Johnny Herbert on Eddie Jordan

9. Alesi’s 1989 F3000 crown

Race winner Alesi leads team-mate Donnelly at pivotal Pau F3000 round

Photo by: Sutton Images

By 1989, EJR was one of the major F3000 players and had Jean Alesi (after a disappointing rookie campaign) and Martin Donnelly (already a race winner) lined up to drive the Camel-backed Reynards.

Donnelly initially had the edge on pace but had engine trouble at the opener and then lost Vallelunga victory after being disqualified for using a revised nosecone. Instead, Alesi got his first win in round three at Pau, after the duo had set the same qualifying time, on a weekend Autosport described as “undoubtedly the turning point of the year”.

More misfortune for Donnelly, combined with consistent scoring for Alesi and a challenge from the DAMS team, meant the Briton was never a title contender. Although Donnelly beat Alesi in an EJR 1-2 at Brands Hatch, the Frenchman reeled off wins at Birmingham’s Superprix and Spa. He sealed the deal with sixth at Le Mans, round nine of 10.

“EJR got the job done and claimed its biggest championship success since the team’s formation,” concluded Autosport.

Alesi’s career had been resurrected to such a degree that he skipped the final round to compete in the Japanese Grand Prix for Tyrrell, having finished fourth on his debut in France. Not for the first or last time, Jordan had helped the career of a future F1 winner.

INSIGHT: Top 10 F1 one-hit wonders

8. 1991 Canadian GP, Montreal

Gachot followed team-mate de Cesaris home for Jordan’s breakthrough double points-scoring finish in Montreal

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Having run Eddie Irvine (who won a round) and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (who didn’t) in F3000 during 1990, Jordan stepped into F1 with the experienced Andrea de Cesaris and Gachot the following year.

Gary Anderson’s Ford HB-powered 191 was a good car, a fact that was underlined as early as round five of the 1991 campaign. De Cesaris, who arguably never drove better than when he was at Jordan, qualified 11th for the Canadian GP, with Gachot 14th.

Both made early stops after their initial tyre choice proved too soft in the opening stint, but then steadily rose up the order.

Despite starting to lose gears, de Cesaris held his nerve to run fifth in the closing stages, with Gachot just behind having survived a spin and nursing his own gearbox gremlins. Both then moved up a spot when leader Nigel Mansell’s Williams famously stopped on the final lap.

“The result says a lot about the people in our team and the companies we work with,” said Jordan after his team’s first F1 points finishes. “Hopefully we can now look forward to leaving pre-qualifying behind us.”

As a newcomer, Jordan had to pre-qualify for a chance to make it onto the 26-car grid in the first half of the season but easily did well enough to avoid having to do so in the latter half of the campaign.

INSIGHT: Best looking F1 cars

7. 1994 Pacific GP, Aida

Barrichello celebrates after delivering the Jordan squad’s first Formula 1 podium

Photo by: Sutton Images

This could have been an entry on the 1993 European GP at Donington Park. One of Ayrton Senna’s greatest drives, the race also showcased the talents of another Brazilian.

INSIGHT: Ayrton Senna’s greatest F1 drives

In just his third world championship GP, Rubens Barrichello rose from 12th to briefly run second in the rain-hit race. He was holding third with less than 10 minutes to go when his Jordan 193’s fuel pressure dropped and he was classified 10th.

Fortunately, the future Ferrari driver would still give Jordan its first F1 podium. After a couple of tough years, Jordan was stronger in 1994 and Barrichello made a great start from eighth to run fifth over a dramatic opening lap in the Pacific GP at Aida.

He rose to fourth when Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren had its second clash with a Williams in the race, resulting in a spin for Hill. Hill soon repassed the Jordan but Barrichello was aided when Hakkinen finally retired with gearbox trouble.

The Jordan briefly rose as high as second amid the pitstops but was running a more representative fourth when Hill’s transmission failed. Under pressure from Martin Brundle’s faster McLaren, Barrichello briefly stalled at his second stop but got third back again when the McLaren’s Peugeot engine cried enough.

Barrichello finished a lap down and had needed some luck but, in the team’s 50th GP, that first podium was still very much deserved.

6. 1994 Belgian GP, Spa

Tense wait at Spa for Barrichello and Jordan, watching the timing screen ahead of confirmation of pole position

Photo by: Sutton Images

Amid F1’s tumultuous 1994 season, Jordan’s 194 was often in the hunt for points and Barrichello became a consistent top-10 contender in qualifying following the San Marino crash that put him in hospital. Fifth on the grid in Spain was his best when the F1 circus headed to Spa, which included a crude chicane at Eau Rouge following the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Senna at Imola.

A wet-but-drying Friday qualifying session gave Barrichello the chance to top the times. He did so by gambling on slicks in the closing moments of the session as the track was at its driest. He stopped the clock in 2m21.163s to beat Michael Schumacher’s Benetton by 0.331s, while the wets-shod Jordan of Irvine was fourth, 0.911s off pole.

“The new chicane and the Bus Stop were really slippery, but slicks were the right way to go,” said Barrichello. “Just.”

Saturday qualifying was wet and Barrichello had to wait it out before his – and Jordan’s – first F1 pole was confirmed. “Watching that screen was more tiring than driving,” he said. “I wasn’t going to run because I didn’t want to help dry the track.”

Barrichello made a good start in the GP but fell to third on the opening lap. He continued to drop back in the dry race, partly due to being fuelled heavy for a planned one-stop strategy, and later spun off, but another milestone had already been reached.

5. 1999 French GP, Magny-Cours

Clever strategy at a wet Magny-Cours helped Frentzen deliver the Jordan team’s second GP victory

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Jordan brought the best out of Frentzen and a combination of the 199’s pace and mistakes at Ferrari and McLaren kept the German in 1999 title contention. A clever strategy in a rain-affected Magny-Cours contest helped Frentzen to his – and Jordan’s – second GP victory.

A wet qualifying session had caught out the top runners and Frentzen lined up fifth, with the Stewart of Barrichello and Alesi’s Sauber on the front row. Frentzen, still recovering from a nasty shunt in Canada, moved up to fourth on a dry opening lap and gained another spot when David Coulthard’s leading McLaren broke.

Frentzen lost out to a flying Hakkinen – up from 14th – on lap 15 of 72, before rain arrived. As the field came in for wet tyres and the safety car was summoned, Alesi skated off, so that Frentzen was third at the restart.

That became second when Hakkinen spun trying to take the lead, only for Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari to come by on its way to the front. But the Ferrari soon hit electrical trouble, elevating Frentzen until Hakkinen again overtook him in a roller-coaster race.

On lap 65 both new leader Hakkinen and Barrichello came in for their final fuel stops. But Frentzen did not – Jordan had fuelled him heavily at his stop to change to wet tyres and was taking a gamble.

The team was concerned Frentzen wouldn’t make it to the flag, but that long safety car period when the conditions were at their worst helped and the Jordan crossed the line 11.1s ahead of Hakkinen.

4. 2003 Brazilian GP, Interlagos

The saga of Fisichella’s fortuitous win at a chaotic Interlagos in 2003 included parc ferme fire

Photo by: Brousseau Photo

Jordan’s decline, with tricky financial and engine situations, was swift and the EJ13 was the second-worst car on the 2003 grid. But another strategy gamble at the Brazilian GP resulted in Jordan scoring its fourth and final F1 victory before it morphed into MF1 Racing, Spyker, Force India, Racing Point and then Aston Martin.

Giancarlo Fisichella qualified an impressive eighth but the first crucial move was Jordan bringing in both him and team-mate Ralph Firman Jr during an early safety car period in the wet conditions to fuel them as long as possible. That put them at the back.

They were still there when Firman suffered a front suspension failure that pitched his Jordan off and he narrowly missed his team-mate. But Fisichella survived and stayed out during the ensuing safety car and round of stops.

Amid concerns that the single-spec wet tyres couldn’t cope with the worst of the conditions, many drivers crashed, including Juan Pablo Montoya and reigning world champion Schumacher. The latter’s Ferrari accident brought out the safety car once more and the race was only briefly green before Jenson Button crashed and full-course yellows flew again.

By the time home hero Barrichello overtook Coulthard’s McLaren for the lead on lap 45, Fisichella had risen to fifth. And when the leading Ferrari ran out of fuel – the legacy of a misfire and telemetry failure – the Jordan moved up again, with Fisichella challenging the Williams of Ralf Schumacher for third.

Both DC and Ralf had to pit for fuel and suddenly Fisichella was challenging Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren for the lead! When Raikkonen made a small error on lap 54, a Jordan led a GP for the first time in two years.

Raikkonen repassed Fisichella shortly before the race was red-flagged following Fernando Alonso’s huge crash. Raikkonen was initially announced as the winner, while Fisichella’s car set itself briefly on fire(!), but an FIA investigation following a Jordan appeal showed that the results should have been declared at the end of lap 54 – the one lap on which the Italian was ahead.   

Jordan hadn’t scored a podium finish for more than two years and would manage only one more in F1. Tiago Monteiro was the best non-Ferrari in the farcical 2005 United States GP in which only six Bridgestone-shod cars started thanks to Michelin tyre concerns.

INSIGHT: Top 10 worst F1 cars to win a GP

3. 1991 Belgian GP, Spa

Schumacher’s sensational Spa debut – and blink-of-an-eye tenure at Jordan – now the stuff of F1 legend

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Michael Schumacher’s arrival – as a replacement for the imprisoned Gachot – has passed into F1 folklore and is probably the most famous example of Jordan giving a young driver an opportunity.

Gachot had sprayed a London taxi driver with CS gas and was refused bail to compete at his home GP, so Jordan needed a driver to join de Cesaris.

Many thought Schumacher had raced at Spa before but he hadn’t. The 22-year-old Mercedes sportscar star was nevertheless eighth fastest in his first F1 qualifying session and improved to seventh on Saturday (after Riccardo Patrese was penalised for no operative reverse gear on his Williams). According to Autosport’s Nigel Roebuck, Schumacher drove the 191 “at a rate it had not encountered before”.

Schumacher’s debut was short because his clutch failed on lap one. There are those who think he could have won. Given the drama that unfolded at the front of the field and the fact that de Cesaris was only 3.5s behind an ailing Senna with three laps to go when his engine failed, that’s not as fanciful as it sounds.

But Schumacher had done enough anyway. “It may seem ridiculous already to speak of him as ‘a special talent’,” wrote Roebuck. “But, just once in a while, you get a feeling about a new driver, an impression that this is the start of a major career.”

By the next event, Schumacher was at Benetton and would take the first of his 91 wins at Spa just a year later.

PLUS: Michael Schumacher’s top 10 F1 wins

2. 1999 Italian GP, Monza

Frentzen’s victory at Monza helped elevate him to world championship contention

Photo by: Sutton Images

This race wasn’t as exciting as the Magny-Cours contest the same year or as dramatic as the 2003 Brazilian GP, but it was the only time a Jordan won a world championship F1 race in the dry. And, for the two weeks between Frentzen’s Monza victory and his 199’s failure on lap 33 of the European GP, it was the one time a Jordan driver genuinely seemed a title contender.

Frentzen qualified second, albeit nearly half a second behind the rapid Hakkinen. Come the race, he ran comfortably ahead of the struggling Ferraris and the McLaren of Coulthard, but leader Hakkinen seemed out of reach, 8s up the road at half-distance.

That was until the Finn selected first gear instead of second and spun off at the first chicane. While Hakkinen walked off to cry in the bushes, Frentzen drove to victory, putting him just 10 points behind Hakkinen and Irvine with three rounds to go.

The race itself was perhaps not as memorable as some on this list, but Frentzen’s emergence as a championship challenger stands as an undoubted high-water mark in Jordan’s history.

“Isn’t it incredible?” said Frentzen. “I can’t believe I have a chance of winning the world title.”

When Frentzen put his Jordan on pole next time out at the Nurburgring, everyone started to wonder what might be possible. He led the race too, but electrical failure put Frentzen out and he eventually finished third in the standings.

1. 1998 Belgian GP, Spa

Hill leads team-mate Schumacher ahead of emotional 1-2 finish in tumultuous Belgian GP

Photo by: Sutton Images

Jordan took an emotional first victory in one of F1’s most famous races, on its 127th start and scored a 1-2. It had to top this list.

Despite the arrival of 1996 world champion Hill, Jordan struggled at the start of the new narrow-car/grooved-tyre F1 era in 1998. But the 198 rapidly improved and an inspired Hill qualified third at Spa.

On a wet race day, both Hill and team-mate Ralf Schumacher managed to survive the infamous lap-one crash triggered by Coulthard that led to a restart almost an hour later. Hill grabbed the early lead and, although he succumbed to Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari on lap eight of 44, was soon well clear of the rest.

After the first round of stops, and with 24 laps completed, the Ferrari was 37s ahead of Hill, who had a 10s cushion over Ralf. The second Jordan had climbed the field nicely from eighth on the grid, boosted by an earlier stop to change from intermediate tyres to wets than many of the other frontrunners.

When Michael Schumacher crashed into the back of Coulthard as the Ferrari attempted to lap the McLaren, Hill moved back into the lead. He was 14s ahead when Ralf dived in for his second stop but lost most of his advantage when an unsighted Fisichella smashed into Shinji Nakano and brought out the safety car.

The race restarted with 12 laps to go – and Hill being very firm over the radio about any possibility of his team-mate being allowed to attack. Ralf was told to hold station and Hill duly reeled off the laps to give Eddie Jordan an emotional first win as an F1 team boss.

PLUS: Damon Hill’s greatest drives

Hill jumps for joy while Schumacher attempts to keep his feelings over Jordan team orders to himself

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Late last summer I had lunch one day with a publisher in London. It was hot, if you can remember that, and we discussed a possible synopsis for a book, the cool Chablis slipped down very readily.

What were they like, these Formula 1 people? Well, I said, they’re a mix, as in any avenue of life. Some are smarter than others. There are those you enjoy, and those from whom you hide. You trust some, remember the lies of others. One thing they have largely in common, though, I added: they’re not poor.

It was at this point that the waiter put something before me. A folder, it was, bearing the letters ‘EJR’. I looked inside, and there was a scribbled message: “All sponsorship contributions gratefully accepted.”

The waiter pointed to another table across the room, and there sat the first two letters of ‘EJR’, as ever with a grin on his face. Later, on his way out, he stopped by the table for a gossip, conducted at a million miles an hour. Then, “Sorry to disturb your lunch”, and he was gone.

My host was clearly shaken. “My God,” he said, “are they all like that?” No, no, I answered; and more’s the pity of it.

At that time Eddie Jordan was in trouble. He had his Formula 3000 team, and he managed a number of successful drivers, most notably Jean Alesi, previously a star of his own team. That much was fine, and so also were the wind tunnel figures for his forthcoming F1 car. To go in the back of it, against all odds, and general stupefaction in the paddock, he had persuaded Ford to supply him with HB V8s. Problem was, late last summer, he didn’t know how he was going to pay for them.

The problem arose when Camel, his sponsor through two highly successful seasons of F3000, decided against backing him in F1. A deal had been agreed; but not inked.

Jordan secured engines from Ford, but how to pay for it was another matter

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

“Duncan Lee, of Camel, was actually the first person outside the team to see the wind-tunnel model of the car,” Jordan remembers. “We’d won a lot of races for them, and thought they wanted to continue with an all-yellow car as they had at Lotus. However…”

However. A seemingly unfathomable decision was taken to be instead simply yet another sponsor of Benetton, where the exposure on the car is inevitably far less, the name and colour lost in the frightful melange that is Luciano’s colour scheme. Does ‘Benetton’ say ‘Camel’ to you? Nor to me, either.

This, however, was neither here nor there to Eddie. Doubtless he filed away Sam Goldwyn’s exquisite remark, “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”, but what he needed to do urgently was find some real money.

“Deep down I’m perhaps basically lazy, but if I absolutely have to perform, then I’m at my best. And you need to be very careful of me then, because I’m quite a fighter by nature” Eddie Jordan

As he continued to show up at the grands prix, Jordan was always completely open about his predicament. “It’s the only way,” he says. “You can tell journalists a load of lies, if you want, but you won’t get away with it for long – and they’ll nail you for it. You can tell them nothing, and they’ll stop bothering to ask. Or you can tell them the truth, in which case perhaps there will be things in print you’d prefer not to see, but they’ll appreciate your openness, and won’t forget it.”

Eddie was worried, but not disheartened. He felt he had a lot to offer, not least the Ford HB, for which so many other teams had clamoured. How had he put his case to Michael Kranefuss?

“Ha! That’d be giving the big secret away…” he replies. “No, no, there was nothing clever about it. I met him for breakfast in Phoenix, before last year’s race. He knew what I’d done with certain drivers, like Alesi, and he listened. Then he said he’d recommend our name be put on a list – which already had three or four on it.

“We then had several meetings with Cosworth, and the deal was signed at the end of June. When Camel changed its mind about coming with us, I was fortunate that Cosworth kept faith with me. They’ve been super.”

Jordan went to the “end of the world” to secure sponsorship from 7Up and Fujifilm

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

Super, yes, but still they have to send out bills. At the races Jordan continued to put what we thought was a brave face on it, but in reality his optimism never wavered.

“I’m at my best,” he maintains, “when my back is to the wall. Deep down I’m perhaps basically lazy, but if I absolutely have to perform, then I’m at my best. And you need to be very careful of me then, because I’m quite a fighter by nature, although I have to be pushed to extreme lengths to do it. At all costs, I will get myself out of a situation.

“We gained considerable credibility when Ford gave us the engine, and it helped enormously when selling ourselves to American corporations. As you know, I’m not exactly behind the door when it comes to asking for sponsorship – you’re always allowed to say no, and it will be accepted. With grace. But I’ll always ask. One thing I think I’m quite good at is marrying deals together, tying sponsors in with each other.”

Yes, but. By the end of 1990, there was a car and an engine, but still no name for them to carry. Eddie admits that was a bad time.

“I was feeling some desperation – without ever showing it, of course,” he says. “But, just when I thought I’d lost everything, the Pepsi-Cola Company deal came up and we had 7Up on the cars. I thought, ‘I’m there – I can work the pieces together now’. I was still a long way off, in terms of the funding I needed, but the pieces I needed for the puzzle were there. I had Ford, and Goodyear, and now Pepsi.”

After that, sponsors headed for Jordan Grand Prix as if in shoals, Eddie’s deal with Fuji being done around the time of the Brazilian GP. “I went from London to Tokyo to London to Sao Paulo,” he smiles, then winces at the memory of it all. “Then I came back from Brazil, and went straight off to Japan again. I was exhausted, but I don’t mind doing that – I’ll go to the end of the world to clinch something.”

The Jordan-Ford 191, designed by Gary Anderson, impressed from the outset. It looked beautiful, and it went as well as it looked. In the early races, though, there were some frustrations, many a good finish evaporating in late race problems.

Top 10: Best looking F1 cars ranked

“After four races we looked good,” Eddie agrees, “but still the fact remained we had no points. It was a matter of overcoming the image of ‘a pretty car with great potential’. We weren’t turning that potential into results, and when tension sets in – as with a football team or anything else – the outfit doesn’t work to its maximum efficiency. Therefore, it was an incredible thing when we finished fourth and fifth in Canada.

The team really grabbed attention at the 1991 Canadian GP

Photo by: Sutton Images

“I’ll remember Montreal to the day I drop down, but perhaps Mexico was more satisfying still, since it was confirmation we were progressing, that Canada wasn’t a fluke…”

At Silverstone last week both Alain Prost and Martin Brundle spoke with some awe of the Jordan’s showing in Mexico. “I think the Williams is the best chassis at the moment,” Alain said, “and then the Jordan…”

Brundle agreed: “Any car that can go through the Peraltada right on the gearbox of the car in front has got a serious amount of downforce.”

Suddenly, then, Jordan Grand Prix is being taken very seriously indeed, and for Andrea de Cesaris 1991 must seem like a dream. Just before I sat down with Eddie at Silverstone, testing was stopped when Andrea parked his car against a wall, but broadly his season has been impressive. In Mexico he drove perhaps the best race of his life. What miracle had Jordan worked here?

“Most of our contracts are geared to… performance-related funding, let’s put it that way. It’s always been my style to do it that way. The actual contracts are perhaps not very big, but ‘you do a good job, and you’ll be rewarded’” Eddie Jordan

“I haven’t done anything – I can’t work it out!” Jordan responds. “It’s true enough he had a serious number of accidents in the past. I mean, you only have to look at one of those Havoc films, and you’ll find 90% of it’s him!

“What I will say is that I think he feels very happy here, and Bertrand Gachot, too. I think we’ve given them a good all-round package, with a car that’s well balanced and reasonably easy to drive, and good engines from Ford. They don’t have to drive over the level of their ability to achieve results.

“The style of our team is slightly different from the norm. It’s very aggressive. I sometimes give the drivers wicked abuse! Truly. But I do it in a semi-jovial way. They know I’m serious, but I try to do it with some compassion. I insist they’re very involved with the team – that they appreciate what the guys are making and doing for them.

“I’ve spent quite a lot of time with Andrea, trying to make him understand that we, as a team, love him, if you know what I mean. I like the drivers to be my friends, first of all, but it also makes good sense. If I can get their confidence up by 10% maybe they’ll drive 1% quicker – that’s a gain I can get for free! But there’s nothing magic about it – nothing I’ve done that any other team owner in the paddock couldn’t do.”

Getting the best out of de Cesaris was also key to Jordan’s early success

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Eddie is frank about emoluments from his now numerous sponsors: “Most of our contracts are geared to… performance-related funding, let’s put it that way.” Which is to say that they pay by results. “It’s always been my style to do it that way,” he adds. “The actual contracts are perhaps not very big, but ‘you do a good job, and you’ll be rewarded’.

“As a matter of fact, it’s the same with the drivers, who are on a very high level of performance incentive. Andrea is on that system,” Jordan chuckles, “and, to be honest, he’s earning a hell of a lot more than I would ever have paid him as a retainer!”

Clearly, however, Eddie’s greatest pride is in his team, as an entity. Over time he built up a collection of people who worked well and – equally important, this – worked well together. In effect, he says, it is an F3/F3000 team that has progressed to GP racing.

“In terms of attitude and motivation,” Jordan says, “I find it hard to imagine a team much better. I’ve worked hard to keep these boys together. That was always my strategy – that, and to keep the numbers down. There’s very little fat on our team. We only employ 41 people.”

Eddie insists that he is in this for the long haul. “History is history,” he is fond of saying. “I want to talk about the present and the future – especially the future.”

So what does the future hold? No more pre-qualifying, for one thing, and this, in the second half of the season, Jordan keenly awaits.

“Pre-qualifying is something I would never ask anyone to do,” he says. “I’ve been racing 21 years, and it’s the most horrific thing I’ve come across. Once it’s finished, and you’ve made it through, you know you’re going to qualify for the race. It’s pre-qualifying that’s the killer.

Optimism started to grow and no longer having to tackle pre-qualifying was another benefit

Photo by: Sutton Images

“On the other hand, I’m delighted we were made to do it, because we’ve got out of it on our own, and I feel it’s a landmark from which the team will always gain. It’s made us stronger.

“At present I don’t feel we’re doing ourselves justice in qualifying. We can do better there, and I think we can qualifying with people like Piquet, Alesi, even Prost and Senna, we can race with them, too. We’re progressing, but what we have to do this year is finish on the podium, and I think that’s possible.”

Look further down the road, I said. “Hmmm… well, what we have to be ready for is the time this little roll stops, and there’s a downward spiral. Quite often, with teams new to F1, your first year is much better than your second, but I think we have the sort of people to cope with that.

“After that we just want to go on the way we are, doing the best job possible, as we have in the other formulae. At present we’re nowhere near what we want to achieve – we want to be World Champions. And we think, in time, it’s going to be hard to stop us…”

World titles may not have arrived, but by the end of the 1990s Jordan was a force to be reckoned with

Photo by: Sutton Images

Pull the 21 April 1988 edition of Autosport from the archives and you’ll find an image of Johnny Herbert, arm aloft in triumph, crossing the finishing line in the opening round of the International F3000 season at Jerez. In a stark visual echo of the white border around the photo, Johnny’s Eddie Jordan Racing-entered Reynard 88D is also almost completely white, bereft of sponsor logos but for an Avon Tyres sticker on the front-wing endplate and a Camel cigarettes banner on the sidepod.

Camel wasn’t even an EJR sponsor at that point. In fact, it had turned down Jordan’s approaches.

Eddie’s response was to borrow Camel stickers from the Italian First Racing team, put them on his car anyway, then pester Autosport editor Peter Foubister to feature it on the cover. Given the dearth of F1 developments – just 16 grands prix a year in those days, and here we were in the one-week gap between rounds one and two – ‘Foub’ needed little in the way of arm-twisting to splash a young British talent on the cover, driving Reynard’s first F3000 chassis to its maiden victory on debut.

EJ then toed Camel sponsorship director Duncan Lee’s door open again, brandished the cover, and said “See what I can do for you…”

In Formula 1 Camel was sponsoring Lotus, which had just lost Ayrton Senna to McLaren. His replacement, Nelson Piquet, had achieved little of note during the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix apart from finishing over a minute off the winner and publicly accusing Senna of being a homosexual.

It was the perfect time to offer an alternative, and some better publicity. Next time out, in Vallelunga, Herbert’s car was painted yellow and carried large paid-for Camel decals.

Eddie’s official F3000 entry was Eddie Jordan Racing Benetton Junior Team. This was more EJ blarney: Herbert had tested a Benetton F1 car and been offered a race seat by team manager Peter Collins, only for that to be vetoed by the Benetton family, who thought Johnny should do a year in F3000 first. Having Johnny race in a green Benetton Formula suit made the arrangement seem rather more connected than it was.

After success in F3000, Jordan set his sights on F1

Photo by: Sutton Images

Ever since the world championship began in 1950, F1 has provided an irresistible lure to the full spectrum of rogues. Unlike many of them, Eddie Jordan was no crook – although he could be, in the words of the late Alan Clark, “economical with the actualite” while playing the game of smoke and mirrors.

What separated him from the morass of time-wasters, mountebanks and the-cheque’s-in-the-post merchants to have tried to break into F1 was that he succeeded – and stayed in the game without leaving much in the way of collateral damage, broken promises and unpaid debts.

It would be wrong to say Jordan blazed a trail for teams coming from the junior ladder to the pinnacle of motor racing, since others (such as Toleman/Benetton, Minardi, Coloni, Zakspeed, etc) had done it first. And none of the teams which tried to follow his lead (the likes of Pacific and a slew of short-lived Italian F3000 outfits) stuck it out for long or got there at all.

EJ made the seemingly impossible possible through his boundless extrovert energy, allied to commercial savvy. The Camel F3000 deal was a prime example of how he could convert a knock-back into an opportunity.

At the time, Eddie Jordan Racing occupied premises near Silverstone which had once housed pigs which grazed on a nearby farm. While F1 was a long way from being the kind of sporting category which launches its season with a sell-out show in a London arena, Eddie understood he needed more razzle-dazzle to attract sponsors

Eddie’s unique style could be an acquired taste – Ron Dennis took some time to warm to him – since the torrent of blarney was often only pseudo-grammatical and came freighted with expletives and cheeky vulgarity. Picture the reaction of the Honda executives in the late 1990s when he theatrically produced a Viagra pill during a meeting and exclaimed: “What your engine needs is some of this!”

No commercial mountain was too high to put him off. Initially Jordan saw his way into F1 via an acquisition of the struggling Team Lotus with Camel money – a deal structured along the lines of the shotgun marriage engineered by Marlboro between Dennis’s Project 4 and McLaren a decade earlier.

This was a long shot, despite Eddie’s success in ensuring Jean Alesi filled the vacancy created when Michele Alboreto parted ways with Tyrrell in the summer of 1989 (accounts differ as to whether a sponsor clash was the reason, or Alboreto kicking off when team-mate Jonathan Palmer was given Tyrrell’s new car before him). Team Lotus soldiered on without Eddie and he was left to mull over the possibility of setting up an F1 project using his own money, from his other business interests plus F3 and F3000 winnings.

Jordan’s arrival in F1 saw a few doubters need convincing

Photo by: Sutton Images

The contrast between public and private Eddie Jordan remains fascinating. He went ahead anyway but, in his later autobiography An Independent Man, he shared his misgivings at the time, born of watching fellow F3000 team boss Mike Earle struggle to keep Onyx afloat in F1 with unreliable title sponsor Moneytron.

“I found that you could look at positives until you were blue in the face but you needed to have a balance in order to be realistic,” he wrote. “This was not about talking a carpet dealer into putting a sticker on your Formula Ford car.

“This was commitment on a massive scale that would involve not just your livelihood but the livelihoods of others who would come to depend on you.”

At the time, Eddie Jordan Racing occupied premises near Silverstone which had once housed pigs which grazed on a nearby farm. While F1 was a long way from being the kind of sporting category which launches its season with a sell-out show in a London arena, Eddie understood he needed more razzle-dazzle to attract sponsors. He needed a car. And he needed to build it before he had the means to pay to race it.

Eddie persuaded engineer-designer Gary Anderson to move over from Reynard’s F3000 project, followed by Andrew Green and Mark Smith. What they brought, apart from determination, was experience in building a car to a price. As an unexpected extra, Anderson and Green brought Ford’s V8 engine into the picture courtesy of a chance encounter with Cosworth’s Bernard Ferguson when they popped into a pub for lunch.

The neat-looking 911 (as it was originally known) was ready to test in October, a pair of blisters on each side of the engine cover attesting to the car originally having been designed with a different V8 in mind. Ulsterman John Watson was roped into testing it on a cold day at Silverstone, and he reported what the car’s eventual race drivers would confirm: it was neat, nimble, well-balanced and easy to drive.

It was also unpainted because Jordan still had no sponsors. Camel backed out and went to Benetton instead. Jordan had been talking to Kodak, hoping its yellow branding would have synergies to Camel’s colours… that fell through too.

From pig house to F1 factory – Jordan’s modest beginnings of its base near Silverstone

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

After a stingingly critical response from the media to the car being launched with no livery or sponsorship, Eddie decided to paint it a patriotic Irish green and set off to wangle wonga from companies with that in their branding, no matter how large or small. Pepsico’s 7-Up brand was a key target but it ‘only’ had $2million in the coffers after committing to sponsor Michael Jackson’s forthcoming Dangerous world tour.

Eddie then flew to Japan and besieged the Fujifilm offices, suggesting he was on the cusp of doing a deal with its key rival, Kodak. Complete fiction at that point but enough to close the sale.

That and another sticker deal with the Irish Tourism Board – plenty of government largesse and tax breaks were being aimed at tech companies looking to open European bases – made the finances look healthier. Two paying drivers, Andrea de Cesaris and Bertrand Gachot, completed the picture.

Jordan’s 1991 season presented two contrasting pictures: in public, a surprising level of success as the new team outperformed its peers on track, in private a downwards spiral of debt only partially staved off by Mercedes underwriting Michael Schumacher’s cameo appearance in Belgium. The end of the 7-Up and Fuji deals left Jordan without significant sponsorship going into 1992.

As Jordan’s team consolidated its competitive position in F1’s midfield, Eddie built his brand proposition: the cheeky outsider

And yet Eddie was often at his best when his back was against the wall: Sasol, the South African petrochemical company, had a fistful of government cash to promote itself abroad, and all the teams above Jordan in the constructors’ table were already spoken for. But the schism which had developed with Ford over late payment meant Eddie had to look elsewhere for power, leading him to Yamaha.

The Japanese company had announced it would go into production with a new supercar, the OX99, and was willing to pay an F1 team to run its V12. Jordan signed a four-year deal but it was destined to end after one as the V12 proved underpowered and hopelessly unreliable, and its sheer bulk hindered the car’s balance.

Many other teams would have folded, having scored just one point all year, but the core personnel remained and EJ truffle-hunted more new partners for next year: a V10 built by Brian Hart, promising Brazilian rookie Rubens Barrichello with a changing cast of paying drivers in the second car, and a slightly muddled livery allowing for the presence of multiple smaller sponsors. The scenario of hand-to-mouth racing prevailed until 1996, when EJ landed the transformative Benson & Hedges sponsorship.

Engine deals, big sponsors and star drivers – Jordan was putting together an eye-catching squad in the late-1990s

Photo by: Michael Cooper / Motorsport Images

A subsequent swap from gold to yellow paint kept the cars on-brand and looked better on TV, too. As Jordan’s team consolidated its competitive position in F1’s midfield, Eddie built his brand proposition: the cheeky outsider. Snake eyes painted on the nose complemented the ‘Bitten Hisses’ decals which Jordan used to creatively circumvent tobacco advertising restrictions in certain territories.

The likes of Ron Dennis continued to look down their noses at the team with one of the smallest and least architecturally impressive factories in the business. To Ron, busy plotting his multi-million pound steel-and-glass palace outside Woking, this fell short of the values F1 was now seeking to embrace. As for all the frivolity and rock ‘n’ roll… highly sub-optimal.

Eddie stayed in the F1 game for 14 years before the headwinds grew too strong. Having sold out he was a rich man, but it’s said he wept and declared himself a failure on the day the deal was signed.

Perhaps the constructors’ championship was the one that got away, but no other team has notched up four grand prix wins while spending as little as possible. As F1 looks towards a future where every team becomes a billion-dollar franchise, even the outfit Eddie’s team became has embraced the principle of spend-to-win.

As EJ himself would say: “Yer bollix…”

Jordan will be sorely missed after passing away aged 76

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Pull the 21 April 1988 edition of Autosport from the archives and you’ll find an image of Johnny Herbert, arm aloft in triumph, crossing the finishing line in the opening round of the International F3000 season at Jerez. In a stark visual echo of the white border around the photo, Johnny’s Eddie Jordan Racing-entered Reynard 88D is also almost completely white, bereft of sponsor logos but for an Avon Tyres sticker on the front-wing endplate and a Camel cigarettes banner on the sidepod.

Camel wasn’t even an EJR sponsor at that point. In fact, it had turned down Jordan’s approaches.

Eddie’s response was to borrow Camel stickers from the Italian First Racing team, put them on his car anyway, then pester Autosport editor Peter Foubister to feature it on the cover. Given the dearth of F1 developments – just 16 grands prix a year in those days, and here we were in the one-week gap between rounds one and two – ‘Foub’ needed little in the way of arm-twisting to splash a young British talent on the cover, driving Reynard’s first F3000 chassis to its maiden victory on debut.

EJ then toed Camel sponsorship director Duncan Lee’s door open again, brandished the cover, and said “See what I can do for you…”

In Formula 1 Camel was sponsoring Lotus, which had just lost Ayrton Senna to McLaren. His replacement, Nelson Piquet, had achieved little of note during the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix apart from finishing over a minute off the winner and publicly accusing Senna of being a homosexual.

It was the perfect time to offer an alternative, and some better publicity. Next time out, in Vallelunga, Herbert’s car was painted yellow and carried large paid-for Camel decals.

Eddie’s official F3000 entry was Eddie Jordan Racing Benetton Junior Team. This was more EJ blarney: Herbert had tested a Benetton F1 car and been offered a race seat by team manager Peter Collins, only for that to be vetoed by the Benetton family, who thought Johnny should do a year in F3000 first. Having Johnny race in a green Benetton Formula suit made the arrangement seem rather more connected than it was.

After success in F3000, Jordan set his sights on F1

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Ever since the world championship began in 1950, F1 has provided an irresistible lure to the full spectrum of rogues. Unlike many of them, Eddie Jordan was no crook although he could be, in the words of the late Alan Clark, “economical with the actualite” while playing the game of smoke and mirrors.

What separated him from the morass of time-wasters, mountebanks and the-cheque’s-in-the-post merchants to have tried to break into F1 was that he succeeded – and stayed in the game without leaving much in the way of collateral damage, broken promises and unpaid debts.

It would be wrong to say Jordan blazed a trail for teams coming from the junior ladder to the pinnacle of motor racing, since others (such as Toleman/Benetton, Minardi, Coloni, Zakspeed, etc) had done it first. And none of the teams which tried to follow his lead (the likes of Pacific and a slew of short-lived Italian F3000 outfits) stuck it out for long or got there at all.

EJ made the seemingly impossible possible through his boundless extrovert energy, allied to commercial savvy. The Camel F3000 deal was a prime example of how he could convert a knock-back into an opportunity.

At the time, Eddie Jordan Racing occupied premises near Silverstone which had once housed pigs which grazed on a nearby farm. While F1 was a long way from being the kind of sporting category which launches its season with a sell-out show in a London arena, Eddie understood he needed more razzle-dazzle to attract sponsors

Eddie’s unique style could be an acquired taste – Ron Dennis took some time to warm to him – since the torrent of blarney was often only pseudo-grammatical and came freighted with expletives and cheeky vulgarity. Picture the reaction of the Honda executives in the late 1990s when he theatrically produced a Viagra pill during a meeting and exclaimed, “What your engine needs is some of this!”

No commercial mountain was too high to put him off. Initially Jordan saw his way into F1 via an acquisition of the struggling Team Lotus with Camel money – a deal structured along the lines of the shotgun marriage engineered by Marlboro between Dennis’s Project 4 and McLaren a decade earlier.

This was a long shot, despite Eddie’s success in ensuring Jean Alesi filled the vacancy created when Michele Alboreto parted ways with Tyrrell in the summer of 1989 (accounts differ as to whether a sponsor clash was the reason, or Alboreto kicking off when team-mate Jonathan Palmer was given Tyrrell’s new car before him). Team Lotus soldiered on without Eddie and he was left to mull over the possibility of setting up an F1 project using his own money, from his other business interests plus F3 and F3000 winnings.

Jordan’s arrival in F1 saw a few doubters need convincing

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The contrast between public and private Eddie Jordan remains fascinating. He went ahead anyway but, in his later autobiography An Independent Man, he shared his misgivings at the time, born of watching fellow F3000 team boss Mike Earle struggle to keep Onyx afloat in F1 with unreliable title sponsor Moneytron.

“I found that you could look at positives until you were blue in the face but you needed to have a balance in order to be realistic,” he wrote. “This was not about talking a carpet dealer into putting a sticker on your Formula Ford car.

“This was commitment on a massive scale that would involve not just your livelihood but the livelihoods of others who would come to depend on you.”

At the time, Eddie Jordan Racing occupied premises near Silverstone which had once housed pigs which grazed on a nearby farm. While F1 was a long way from being the kind of sporting category which launches its season with a sell-out show in a London arena, Eddie understood he needed more razzle-dazzle to attract sponsors. He needed a car. And he needed to build it before he had the means to pay to race it.

Eddie persuaded engineer-designer Gary Anderson to move over from Reynard’s F3000 project, followed by Andrew Green and Mark Smith. What they brought, apart from determination, was experience in building a car to a price. As an unexpected extra, Anderson and Green brought Ford’s V8 engine into the picture courtesy of a chance encounter with Cosworth’s Bernard Ferguson when they popped into a pub for lunch.

The neat-looking 911 (as it was originally known) was ready to test in October, a pair of blisters on each side of the engine cover attesting to the car originally having been designed with a different V8 in mind. Ulsterman John Watson was roped into testing it on a cold day at Silverstone, and he reported what the car’s eventual race drivers would confirm: it was neat, nimble, well-balanced and easy to drive.

It was also unpainted because Jordan still had no sponsors. Camel backed out and went to Benetton instead. Jordan had been talking to Kodak, hoping its yellow branding would have synergies to Camel’s colours… that fell through too.

From pig house to F1 factory – Jordan’s modest beginnings of its base near Silverstone

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

After a stingingly critical response from the media to the car being launched with no livery or sponsorship, Eddie decided to paint it a patriotic Irish green and set off to wangle wonga from companies with that in their branding, no matter how large or small. Pepsico’s 7-Up brand was a key target but it ‘only’ had $2million in the coffers after committing to sponsor Michael Jackson’s forthcoming Dangerous world tour.

Eddie then flew to Japan and besieged the Fujifilm offices, suggesting he was on the cusp of doing a deal with its key rival, Kodak. Complete fiction at that point but enough to close the sale.

That and another sticker deal with the Irish Tourism Board – plenty of government largesse and tax breaks were being aimed at tech companies looking to open European bases – made the finances look healthier. Two paying drivers, Andrea de Cesaris and Bertrand Gachot, completed the picture.

Jordan’s 1991 season presented two contrasting pictures: in public, a surprising level of success as the new team outperformed its peers on track, in private a downwards spiral of debt only partially staved off by Mercedes underwriting Michael Schumacher’s cameo appearance in Belgium. The end of the 7-Up and Fuji deals left Jordan without significant sponsorship going into 1992.

As Jordan’s team consolidated its competitive position in F1’s midfield, Eddie built his brand proposition: the cheeky outsider

And yet Eddie was often at his best when his back was against the wall: Sasol, the South African petrochemical company, had a fistful of government cash to promote itself abroad and all the teams above Jordan in the constructors’ table were already spoken for. But the schism which had developed with Ford over late payment meant Eddie had to look elsewhere for power, leading him to Yamaha.

The Japanese company had announced it would go into production with a new supercar, the OX99, and was willing to pay an F1 team to run its V12. Jordan signed a four-year deal but it was destined to end after one as the V12 proved underpowered and hopelessly unreliable, and its sheer bulk hindered the car’s balance.

Many other teams would have folded, having scored just one point all year, but the core personnel remained and EJ truffle-hunted more new partners for next year: a V10 built by Brian Hart, promising Brazilian rookie Rubens Barrichello with a changing cast of paying drivers in the second car, and a slightly muddled livery allowing for the presence of multiple smaller sponsors. The scenario of hand-to-mouth racing prevailed until 1996, when EJ landed the transformative Benson & Hedges sponsorship.

Engine deals, big sponsors and star drivers – Jordan was putting together an eye-catching squad in the late-1990s

Photo by: Michael Cooper / Motorsport Images

A subsequent swap from gold to yellow paint kept the cars on-brand and looked better on TV, too. As Jordan’s team consolidated its competitive position in F1’s midfield, Eddie built his brand proposition: the cheeky outsider. Snake eyes painted on the nose complemented the ‘Bitten Hisses’ decals which Jordan used to creatively circumvent tobacco advertising restrictions in certain territories.

The likes of Ron Dennis continued to look down their noses at the team with one of the smallest and least architecturally impressive factories in the business. To Ron, busy plotting his multi-million pound steel-and-glass palace outside Woking, this fell short of the values F1 was now seeking to embrace. As for all the frivolity and rock ‘n’ roll… highly sub-optimal.

Eddie stayed in the F1 game for 14 years before the headwinds grew too strong. Having sold out he was a rich man, but it’s said he wept and declared himself a failure on the day the deal was signed.

Perhaps the constructors’ championship was the one that got away, but no other team has notched up four grand prix wins while spending as little as possible. As F1 looks towards a future where every team becomes a billion-dollar franchise, even the outfit Eddie’s team became has embraced the principle of spend-to-win.

As EJ himself would say: “Yer bollix…”

Jordan will be sorely missed after passing away aged 76

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Eddie Jordan’s team burst into Formula 1 in 1991 and immediately made an impression.

Before becoming the Midland-owned MF1 Racing for 2006, Jordan Grand Prix built up a cult following, helped launch the careers of several drivers and briefly became a championship contender.

Early breakthrough

1991 Canadian GP (2 June 1991)

Andrea de Cesaris, Jordan 191

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Bertrand Gachot, Jordan 191

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Jordan’s first F1 car was a good one and underlined that fact as early as round five of the 1991 campaign. Andrea de Cesaris, who arguably never drove better than when he was at Jordan, led Bertrand Gachot as the team took its first points with fourth and fifth.

Introducing a legend

1991 Belgian GP (25 August 1991)

Michael Schumacher, Jordan 191 Ford

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Michael Schumacher, Jordan

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Michael Schumacher’s arrival – as a replacement for the imprisoned Bertrand Gachot – has passed into F1 folklore. The Mercedes sportscar junior qualified seventh at Spa, though his clutch failed on lap one of the race. By the next event, Schumacher was at Benetton, but he had been a fine example of Jordan giving young talent a chance.

Making the podium

1994 Pacific GP (17 April 1994)

Rubens Barrichello, Jordan 194-Hart

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Podium: Gerhard Berger, Ferrari second; Michael Schumacher, Benetton winner; Rubens Barrichello, Jordan third

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Rubens Barrichello was another future grand prix winner who started his F1 career at Jordan. After a couple of tough years, Jordan was stronger in 1994 and Barrichello survived a dramatic opening lap in the Pacific GP at Aida to rise from eighth on the grid to third and give Jordan its first podium in F1.

The first pole

1994 Belgian GP (26 August 1994)

Rubens Barrichello, Jordan

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Rubens Barrichello, Jordan

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A classic wet but drying Friday qualifying session gave Rubens Barrichello the chance to top the times, which meant he took pole when Saturday’s session was even wetter. From Jordan’s first F1 pole, Barrichello fell to third on the opening lap and later spun off, but another milestone had been reached.

Edging closer

1995 Canadian GP (11 June 1995)

Eddie Irvine, Jordan 195

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Rubens Barrichello, Jordan, 2nd position, and Jordan teammate Eddie Irvine, Jordan, 3rd position, celebrate on the podium

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

A deal with Peugeot gave Jordan manufacturer support in 1995, though the 195 was rarely able to challenge the big guns. But in a race of attrition, Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine worked their way up the order and inherited second and third when Michael Schumacher’s Benetton hit trouble in the closing stages.

Emotional victory

1998 Belgian GP (30 August 1998)

Damon Hill, Jordan 198 leads Michael Schumacher, Ferrari F300 and Eddie Irvine, Ferrari F300

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Eddie Jordan, Jordan GP

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Despite the arrival of 1996 world champion Damon Hill, Jordan struggled at the start of the new narrow-car/grooved-tyre F1 era in 1998. But the 198 rapidly improved and an inspired Hill qualified third at Spa. In a chaotic wet race that included a startline shunt and Michael Schumacher crashing into the back of David Coulthard, Hill led home Ralf Schumacher to score a 1-2 and give Jordan a popular first F1 victory.

Frentzen strikes in France

1999 French GP (27 June 1999)

Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Jordan Mugen Honda 199

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Heinz-Harald Frentzen, 1st position, on the podium with Eddie Jordan, Team Principal, Jordan Grand Prix

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Jordan brought the best out of Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and a combination of the 199’s pace and mistakes at Ferrari and McLaren kept the German in title contention. A clever strategy in a rain-affected Magny-Cours contest helped Frentzen to his – and Jordan’s – second GP victory.

Championship challengers

1999 Italian GP (12 September 1999)

Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Jordan 199

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Winner Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Jordan Mugen Honda

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Consistent scoring kept Heinz-Harald Frentzen vaguely in touch in the drivers’ championship, and his chances improved significantly at Monza. He qualified second and inherited the lead when Mika Hakkinen dropped his McLaren. That victory, plus pole next time at the Nurburgring, gave Jordan genuine momentum, but electrical failure in the European GP put Frentzen out of a promising position, and he eventually finished third in the standings.

One last hurrah

2003 Brazilian GP (6 April 2003)

Giancarlo Fisichella, Jordan Ford EJ13, drives through the debris on the track

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Giancarlo Fisichella is awarded the winner’s trophy alongside Eddie Jordan from the previous round in Brazil

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Jordan’s decline, with tricky financial and engine situations, was swift, and the EJ13 was the second-worst car on the 2003 grid. But a strategy gamble paid off when the race was red-flagged following Fernando Alonso’s huge crash. Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren had just repassed Giancarlo Fisichella after an earlier error, but the Jordan driver inherited Interlagos victory when the results were – eventually – taken back to the end of lap 54, Fisichella’s only official lap in the lead.