Eddie Jordan
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Edmund "Eddie" Jordan (born March 30, 1948) is the founder and former owner of Jordan Grand Prix, a Formula One constructor which operated from 1991 to 2005.
Born in Ireland in 1948, Jordan grew up in Bray, County Wicklow, intending to become a dentist but left school (Synge Street Christian Brothers School in Central Dublin) to work for the Bank of Ireland as a clerk. When, during a strike in Dublin, he went to work on the island of Jersey, he witnessed kart racing for the first time and was enthralled; upon his return to Dublin, Jordan bought a kart and began racing. His first race was at Bouley Bay, Jersey, in 1970; he entered the Irish Kart Championship in 1971 and won it.
In 1974 Jordan moved on to Formula Ford, where he competed for two years, but was forced to sit out the 1976 season when he broke both his legs in a crash. After his injuries had healed, he switched to Formula Atlantic, won three races in 1977, and won the Irish Formula Atlantic Championship in 1978. Jordan and Stefan Johansson raced in British Formula Three in 1979, calling themselves "Team Ireland". The same year, Jordan drove in one Formula Two race and did a small amount of testing for McLaren.
At the end of 1979 and short of money, Jordan founded his first team, Eddie Jordan Racing, which ran drivers David Leslie and David Sears in 1981 at various events in and around Great Britain. In 1982 his primary driver was James Weaver; in 1983 Weaver ran again in European F3 and Jordan hired Martin Brundle, who finished second to Ayrton Senna in British F3. In 1987 the team employed Johnny Herbert, who proceeded to win the British Formula Three Championship.
Jordan also entered a Formula 3000 team, whose first wins came with drivers Herbert and Martin Donnelly in 1988. In 1989 the Jordan F3000 team dominated the season and Jordan driver Jean Alesi won the championship.
Jordan founded Jordan Grand Prix in 1991 hiring the respected Gary Anderson as Chief Designer. The team quickly gained its respect and punched above their weight on a number of occasions during the season. It should also be noted that Eddie Jordan gave a young German called Michael Schumacher his Formula 1 debut in that, the team's debut season. After one race for the team, Schumacher was lured away to rivals Benetton.
In 1998 the team achieved its best ever result when drivers Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher finished first and second at the Belgian Grand Prix. In 1999 Jordan achieved their F1 zenith when Heinz Harald Frentzen became a genuine contender for the championship, ultimately finishing third, the best placing ever of a Jordan driver and accumulating two race wins along the way.
After losing a Honda engine partnership deal to the BAR (now Honda F1) team in 2002 and numerous difficulties within the team (including a very public row and the sacking of Frentzen before his home GP), Jordan was forced to switch to expensive Cosworth engines, The added burden of this plus DHL withdrawing their sponsorship and Benson and Hedges toning down their sponsorship soon added up and the lack of funds made his team go from bad to worse in 2003. However despite this, Jordan delivered an improbable race win in Brazil 2003 courtesy of Giancarlo Fisichella, the first for Fisichella and the last Formula One victory for the Ford Motor Company and the Jordan team.
Jordan's steep fall from the glitzy heights of 3rd in the constructors in 1999 was now out of control. Despite new sponsorship from Trust computers and the addition of "Quick" Nick Heidfeld and a promising young rookie in Timo Glock for 2004, Jordan were in serious trouble. Jordan retained complete ownership of his team until 2004 and his rejections of rumoured approaches for buy outs (most notably from Peugeot and Honda) may have cost the team greater success.
His famous charisma had enabled him to "finesse" a number of sponsorship deals, without which Jordan Grand Prix would almost certainly have gone the way of Prost Grand Prix or Arrows. At the end it all proved too much for Eddie Jordan. If he did not sell he realised he would soon have to close his doors. A buyer was found in Midland Group financed by wealthy Canadian businesman Alex Schnaider and in early 2005, the team was sold to Midland Group.
The team competed for one final season as 'Jordan', before renaming the team as MF1 Racing for the 2006 season, then being sold later in 2006 to Dutch car manufacturer Spyker Cars to become Spyker F1 for 2007, and then sold again to become Force India in 2008.
It still operates out of Jordan's old premises at Silverstone. But the dream of Eddie Jordan, his pride and joy, the "rock and roll team", were lost forever to the hard realities of modern Formula 1.
Eddie Jordan is not directly involved in Formula One anymore, although he now writes a column called 'This much I know' for F1 Racing magazine. Eddie has also worked on a TV series called "Eddie Jordan's Bad Boy Racers".
He continues to love rock and roll music (he plays the drums). Until 2007 his band's name was V10. A cut down version of the band is currently gigging at various venues around the world under the name of "Eddie & The Robbers".
Other sporting interest include Golf and Horse Racing.
His father Danny Jordan played for Shamrock Rovers in the 1950s and Eddie was a fanatical fan of the club [1]. Jordan is a fan of Coventry City Football Club and has been linked with takeover bids for the club.[1] He also has a season ticket for Celtic FC
He has several other companies still owned partly or wholly by himself including the Vodka brand Vodka V10 and the energy drink brand EJ-10
Jordan has written an autobiography, "An Independent Man", which was published in May 2007.[2]
In 2007 he was appointed Chairman of Rally Ireland, a round of the World Rally Championship.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Eddie Jordan - I'm not City Saviour www.cwn.org.uk Retrieved 14 November 2006
- ^ Jordan, Eddie (2007). An Independent Man. Orion Books. ISBN 9780752889504.
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