I still remember when Eddie Jordan and I met at the end of 1986 at a motorsport awards dinner. He approached me and asked if anyone had spoken to me about driving for them the following year. I told him no one had and so on the back of a napkin, before the end of the awards, we agreed to come together for 1987 when we would go on to win the Formula 3 British Championship together.
I still believe if he hadn’t given me that chance in Formula 3, I’m not quite sure I’d have had that success or would have got to Formula One without him.
His strength was also in the team he had chosen. When they were in the factory he made sure that he and they were on the same page and there was a togetherness. Everybody had a free and open situation in their particular jobs and that got the best out of people on that limited budget. He had a lot of trust, Eddie looked after everybody and that just gave them a really good feel and there was a lot of love, because that was his type of character that he had, he was never, ever shying away from his emotions. He’d be hard when he needed to be but he also knew very well that he needed to keep everybody motivated, happy in the job that they were doing, so there was respect, both ways.
Jordan F1 were the underdogs, they were the ones that were there or thereabouts and then got very close to winning the drivers and constructors’ championship with Heinz-Harald Frentzen in 1999. They were the underdogs everybody loved because there was just something about them that drew you in.
Look at the pictures of the British Grand Prix in 1995 after I won. Eddie had the truck with his band, Nick Mason was on the drums, Eddie was on the drums, Damon was playing guitar, me doing tambourine as that was the only rhythmic thing I could sort of play. It wasn’t Formula One but the fun and the people that it dragged in after the race was brilliant and he loved it.
He loved that ability to enjoy what he was doing and the limelight that went with it all. That was why he was so refreshing, so very charismatic and the energy that he brought into the paddock is something that we are still benefiting from today. Eddie was one of the last of those successful characters who came in and he was probably one of the very last team owners who was also running the team, very, very involved with all the decision making that was going on. The way that he did it made it that much more special. He achieved so, so much with not the biggest budget on the grid and that is something that earned respect. There’s a lot of respect for what Eddie achieved on track just as there’s a lot of respect for what Eddie did off track with his TV career.
I will miss him massively. I think we will all miss him, to be honest. We all have memories in different ways of what he was like but it was the energy that he gave all of us at the end of the day. He was one of the biggest characters we had in the paddock and his popularity is going to live on for sure.
