Fast Eddie

By Aiden McLaughlin

In an era long before Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ highlighted the characters of the F1 circuit, Eddie Jordan’s energy and charisma saw him stand tall in a sport rightly dominated by drivers.

When he arrived on the grid with his ‘Jordan Grand Prix’ team in 1991, times were very different. Jordan had seen his team graduate from Formula 3 and Formula 3000 classes, and with a limited budget at his disposal, the former Bank of Ireland worker, now in his early forties, had a driver line up of Italian Andrea de Cesaris and Belgian Bertrand Gachot. But when Gachot was sent to prison mid-season for attacking a taxi driver, Mercedes-Benz not only offered Jordan a driver to replace Gachot, but a cool $150,000 to go alongside it. The driver was a young fella by the name of Michael Schumacher.

Unfortunately for Jordan, the relationship would only last one race, with the legend to be moving down the pitlane to Benetton; although Jordan would argue that he had a contract with the German, the courts would throw the matter out.

From that first season until 2005, the team that has now become Aston Martin, entered 250 races and was home to the likes of Rubens Barrichello, Eddie Irvine, Martin Brundle, Damon Hill and Michael’s younger brother, Ralf Schumacher.

They’d win four Grand Prix, with their finest moment the 1998 one-two at Spa, with Hill followed home by Ralf.

Just like now, the powerhouse teams of the sport had a year-on-year stranglehold on proceedings; Williams, McLaren and Ferrari would lead the pack at a time when Red Bull was just a drink you mixed with spirits on an 18-30 holiday on a Greek island. But that never deterred Jordan, who would spend his down time at F1 weekends playing the drums with his band ‘Eddie & The Robbers’.

Always close to the edge when it came to the team’s finances, Jordan was eventually forced to sell the team in 2005, unable to survive without the tobacco sponsorship that was slowly being removed from not just F1, but most sports around the world – perhaps the bookmaker ‘Paddy Power’ would have been a suitable replacement for the passionate Irishman, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

From there, Jordan became a respected, forthright pundit on the sideline, working for the BBC, as well as Channel Four in the UK when they bought the free-to-air rights in behind the pay TV giants Sky Sports. Most recently, he worked together with David Coulthard on the ‘Formula For Success’ podcast, as well as brokering the deal that saw his long-term friend Adrian Newey move to Aston Martin.

Sadly he announced last December that he was suffering from bladder and prostate cancer which had spread to his spine.

Yesterday, he passed away peacefully with family by his side in Cape Town at the age of 76 having touched plenty around the world with his energy and zest for life. They talk about individuals who live in the fast lane – Eddie Jordan was certainly one of those people.