Friends of Eddie Jordan often joked it was easy to find him in a crowded room: “You simply followed the sound of laughter.” The buccaneering former Formula One (F1) team owner, who has died aged 76, was one of motor sport’s “great characters – and talent spotters”, says The Telegraph.
During his 14 years leading the Jordan Grand Prix team, he gave Michael Schumacher his first F1 drive and brought on world champion Damon Hill. A “flamboyant adventurer”, he gave the giants of motor sport a run for their money before selling out for $60 million in 2006 to launch a second career as a popular TV pundit and podcaster.
Jordan, who never lost his Dublin street swagger, seemed “a throwback to an era predating the corporatisation of pit lane and paddock”, says The Telegraph. In contrast to most F1 teams, Jordan Grand Prix was an independent – “feted as the underfunded underdog battling against the Goliaths of the car industry”. His antics inspired a mixture of affection and exasperation.
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“Everyone had an Eddie Jordan story – about some deal he managed to pull off through sheer charm (‘People say I didn’t kiss the Blarney, I stole it’); a horse he managed to acquire thanks to some tip-off; or his exploits as a drummer with his band Eddie & the Robbers.” He suffered from alopecia following an accident and was much ribbed about his wigs (he had three of different lengths, which he wore in rotation), which had a habit of falling off.
Jordan was a close friend of F1’s “éminence grise” Bernie Ecclestone, and shared some of his dealmaking instincts, notes The Guardian – he made a small fortune in 1995 selling his top driver Eddie Irvine’s contract to Ferrari, and painted his cars yellow (a weak attempt at his patron’s gold branding) when he scored a major sponsorship deal with Benson & Hedges. In 1998, he sold half his shares to private-equity firm Warburg Pincus, “then bought them back at substantial profit”. Still, at heart, he was a wannabe rock star – numbering George Harrison, John Lydon and Chris Rea among friends, and was in his element performing at Silverstone after the British Grand Prix.
In later life, Jordan liked to regale colleagues with stories of his wheeler-dealing youth. “In his early days he sold salmon out of the back of a van” in Dublin, and mastered “the fast, witty sales talk”, usually laced with expletives, that became his trademark, says BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson. Born in 1948, Jordan briefly considered becoming a priest, says The Telegraph, but instead went to work as a clerk with the Bank of Ireland.
His passion for motor sport was sparked in 1970 when, temporarily unemployed due to a bank strike, he headed for Jersey to work as an accountant and got into go-karting, says the Financial Times. Jordan enjoyed some success in Irish karting before joining Formula Ford in 1974 but was never a top-flight driver. His genius emerged when he decided to become a team owner: cutting his teeth on Formula Three in the 1980s, before graduating to “the Piranha Club” of F1. Jordan Grand Prix’s greatest day was a “one-two finish” in the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, but sponsorship problems and team divisions eventually sank the dream. Partly on Ecclestone’s advice, Jordan sold out.
There’s no one like Eddie Jordan
Jordan was also a shareholder in Celtic FC, had investments in gaming and entertainment businesses, and launched his own vodka and energy drinks. He also built up a substantial property portfolio and owned luxury yachts.
Diagnosed with cancer last year, his “zest for deals never left him”, says the FT: he recently led the rescue of the Premiership Rugby team London Irish.
“He was the sort of guy you got attached to. He’s just such a special guy, a first-class person,” says Ecclestone. “There’s nobody in F1 like Eddie today.”
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