Remembering Eddie Jordan: Formula One’s inimitable maverick

Eddie Jordan was one of the great characters of motor sport – an adventurer with a zeal for deal-making and a wannabe rock star. His death leaves a hole in the sport that won’t be filled, says Jane Lewis

Eddie Jordan ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco 2024
(Image credit: Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images)

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.

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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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.