Jordan Grand Prix was a
Formula One constructor that competed from 1991
to 2005. The team is named after Irish businessman and founder
Eddie Jordan. Jordan and his team were
well known for a "rock and roll" attitude which added colour and
character to Formula One in the 1990s.
In early 2005, the team was sold to
Midland Group, who competed for one final
season as 'Jordan', before renaming the team as
MF1 Racing for the
2006 season, before being sold later
in 2006 to Dutch car manufacturer
Spyker
Cars to become
Spyker F1 for , and
then sold again to become
Force India in
.
Early history
Eddie Jordan had a brief stint as a race driver in the late 1970s
and ran a successful
Formula Three
team, called Eddie Jordan Racing, in the late 1980s. The team
graduated to
International
Formula 3000 for
1988, winning its
first race in the category with
Johnny
Herbert. In
1989, Jordan won the
F3000 drivers' championship with future Formula One star
Jean Alesi. The team also ran future F1 drivers
such as
Martin
Donnelly and
Eddie Irvine in
F3000.
Jordan's success in lower formulae inspired the creation of a
Formula One programme for the
1991 season and a change of name to
Jordan Grand Prix. The first driver to test a Jordan F1 car was
veteran Ulsterman
John
Watson.
Jordan hired Italian
veteran
Andrea de Cesaris and Belgian
Bertrand Gachot to race his first
cars, which were powered by Ford. The team had a very solid
debut finishing 5th in the Constructors' Championship, with de
Cesaris finishing 9th in the Drivers' Championship. Gachot failed
to end the season after being sent to prison for attacking a taxi
driver. Gachot was replaced for the
Belgian Grand Prix by
Michael Schumacher, for whom the team
received $150,000 from
Mercedes-Benz
who were keen to give their young German sportscar star experience
of Grand Prix racing in readiness for the firm's future F1
ambitions (ironically, it was Schumacher that proved Mercedes
Benz's biggest hurdle to achieving success in the late 1990s and
early 2000s). Despite Jordan's signed
agreement in principle
with Mercedes for the remainder of the season, Schumacher was
signed by
Benetton-
Ford for the following race. Jordan
applied for an injunction in the UK courts to prevent Schumacher
driving for Benetton, but lost the case as they had not yet signed
a contract. Future
Champ Car title winner
Alessandro Zanardi and ousted
Benetton driver
Roberto Moreno filled
the second car afterwards.Success for Jordan literally came at a
high price. The team was forced to switch to cheaper
Yamaha engines for the
1992 season. With
Maurício Gugelmin and
Stefano Modena driving, the team struggled
badly and failed to score a point until the final race of the
season.
1993 saw further changes,
with the team again changing engine suppliers, this time to
Hart Racing Engines. Again, the season
started with two new drivers,
Ivan
Capelli and Brazilian rookie
Rubens Barrichello. Capelli left after
two races and Barrichello saw five other drivers become team mates
of his during the 1993 campaign. Jordan only had moderate
improvement, scoring three points. Signs of stability were
beginning to show near the end of the season when Barrichello was
joined by
Eddie Irvine, a former Jordan
driver in F3000. The Ulsterman finished sixth and secured a point
on his debut Formula One race at
Suzuka.
It was further
memorable because Irvine unlapped himself against an F1 great,
McLaren
's Ayrton Senna, in order to overtake Damon Hill. After the race finished, an
incensed Senna stormed into the Jordan paddock and punched Irvine
in the face.
Barrichello and Irvine returned for the
1994 season, as did the Hart
engines, but Irvine had a bad start to the season, earning a
three-race ban for reckless driving. Barrichello earned the team
their first top three finish in Japan at the Pacific Grand Prix,
but was nearly killed during the following race in
San Marino following a
frightening qualifying crash. The team overcame these difficulties
and returned to their initial form as they finished fifth in the
Constructors' Championship again. Barrichello earned Jordan's first
pole position, and finished 6th in the Drivers' Championship with
19 points. This achievement stunned the Formula 1 big teams given
the fact that a team with such a low budget with an engine designed
and built by Darrell O'Brien / Hart Engineering achieved 5th in the
constructor's championship with 28 points
Jordan switched to a
Peugeot-powered engine
in
1995. During the
Canadian Grand Prix that year, both
Irvine and Barrichello finished on the podium, finishing second and
third respectively. It was the highlight to an unspectacular but
relatively solid year for Jordan, as they hung around mid-pack to
finish 6th in the Championship.
When Irvine left in
1996 to
become Michael Schumacher's team mate at Ferrari, Jordan replaced
him with veteran
Martin Brundle, the
ex-Le Mans winner and World Sportscar Champion. The team failed to
make the podium, but both drivers managed to score a string of
fourth place finishes as the team scored yet another 5th among the
constructors.
Late 1990s ascent
1997 saw the departure of
both drivers from the previous year. Barrichello left for the newly
formed
Stewart Grand Prix, whilst
Brundle became a Formula One commentator for
ITV.
Jordan replaced them with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella, who had raced for
Minardi the previous year, and young
Ralf Schumacher, Michael's
brother. Again, the team finished 5th in the Championship,
with Fisichella scoring two finishes on the podium. At Hockenheim,
Fisichella had led the race, but lost out to an inspired
Gerhard Berger and a puncture. The Italian
scored fastest lap at the Spanish Grand Prix. A lowlight of the
season came in Argentina when Ralf Schumacher took out his Italian
team-mate during the race. This was tempered by Ralf's first
podium.
In
1998, the team made its
biggest signing as former World Champion
Damon Hill, a graduate of Jordan's
F3000 programme, replaced
Fisichella. The team also replaced its Peugeots, which went to
Prost, with
Mugen Honda motors. Up to the halfway point of
the season, Jordan had failed to score a single point due to
reliability problems. However, things improved greatly towards the
end of the season. At that year's rain-soaked
Belgian Grand Prix in which only six
cars finished, Hill earned Jordan their first ever Formula One win,
which was also Hill's 22nd career Grand Prix victory. Ralf
Schumacher sweetened the victory by finishing second. Hill finished
6th in the driver's standings with Ralf 10th. Hill's heroic last
lap, last-corner move on
Heinz-Harald Frentzen at Suzuka
enabled him to finish the race in fourth and also earned Jordan
fourth in the Constructors Championship for 1998 (this was tempered
by speculation that Frentzen had "gifted" the place to Hill, the
German having confirmed a move to Jordan for 1999, after a
tumultuous career with Williams).
Yet another former F3000 driver of Jordan's,
Heinz-Harald Frentzen, joined his F1
program in
1999, replacing
Williams-bound Ralf Schumacher. The
season was a nightmare for Hill, who was to retire at the end of
the season. However, Frentzen's season was immensely successful,
with the German earning two victories and a pole position. For a
short while Frentzen had entertained thoughts of a world title, but
poor luck and greater speed from McLaren and Ferrari ended his
hopes. Frentzen finished third in the Drivers' Championship and the
team also finished third amongst the Constructors'. 1999 was to be
the team's finest season.
Decline
For
2000 Hill was replaced
by
Jarno Trulli, fresh from a couple of
years at
Prost and
Minardi. His one-lap speed in particular impressed,
but he was unable to score a podium. Frentzen was unable to
replicate the glories of 1999 and the team slipped back to 6th in
the Constructors' Championship. The team had been on course for
major points at
Monaco, but
poor luck intervened.
Both drivers returned to start
2001 and Jordan switched to works
Honda engines which were already being
supplied to rival team
BAR.
This would lead to a battle for the right to use the Honda engines
in the long term. Frentzen was released from the team in
mid-season, a series of disagreements with team boss Eddie Jordan a
possible explanation. Jordan himself has hinted that he dropped
Frentzen to bring in
Takuma Sato for
2002, an attempt to appease Honda. Frentzen was replaced by test
driver
Ricardo Zonta at the
German Grand Prix, but thereafter in
2001
Jean Alesi, in the final stages of
his Formula One career, took the seat. Amidst all the turmoil,
Trulli managed to score points every now and then, and the team, as
it had done many times before, finished 5th.
Jordan re-organised in , with Fisichella returning and
Takuma Sato joining the team, thanks in no small
part to Honda's influence. Due to a drop in sponsorship money the
team slipped backwards. Fisichella often exceeded the car's
abilities in qualifying, a sixth place on the grid for Montreal
surprising many onlookers. Yet results-wise, the Italian had to
make do with a trio of fifth places and a final point from Hungary.
Sato showed flashes of speed, but managed just two points, at
Suzuka. Despite the drop in form, Jordan still managed sixth in the
championship, ahead of BAR.For ,
Honda left
Jordan to concentrate on their partnership with
BAR. Jordan had to make do with
Ford Cosworth engines, and the season was not regarded
as a success. Despite beating only Minardi to score 9th in the
standings, Jordan won in 2003. The win came under extraordinary
circumstances in the
2003
Brazilian Grand Prix which took place in torrential weather
conditions. Following a massive accident on the start / finish
straight, the race was red flagged and stopped. After some initial
confusion,
Giancarlo Fisichella
was initially ruled to have finished a still remarkable second
behind
Kimi Räikkönen who
took the top step on the podium. However, an
FIA
inquiry several days later led to Fisichella being officially
declared the winner of his first F1 race.
Fisichella was,
therefore, unable to celebrate his first career victory on the top
step of the podium, although he and Räikkönen swapped their
drivers' trophies in a presentation at the following Grand Prix,
while McLaren's Ron Dennis handed over the constructors' trophy
to Eddie Jordan. Aside from the
unlikely win, neither Fisichella or new teammate
Ralph Firman were able to have any sort of
success in their Jordans.
After Firman was injured in practice for the
2003 Hungarian Grand Prix
Jordan fielded the first ever Hungarian
Formula One driver, Zsolt Baumgartner. Firman returned
for the final two events, but was unable to add to the point he won
in Spain. Fisichella only managed two points on top of his victory
and unhappy at the team's slump he departed for Sauber.
In June 2003 Jordan sued mobile phone company
Vodafone for £150 million, claiming that the
company had made a verbal contract for a three-year sponsorship,
then given it to
Ferrari instead.
Jordan withdrew the action two months later, agreeing to pay
Vodafone's costs. This was a double financial blow from which the
team did not recover. The judge was highly critical of
Eddie Jordan, branding the allegations against
Vodafone "without foundation and false".
In
2004, Jordan struggled
financially, and their status for the future was questionable.
The team
fielded German
Nick Heidfeld, formerly of Sauber and Prost,
and Italian rookie
Giorgio Pantano. Ex-F3000
champion Heidfeld showed promise, but could not achieve many good
results, the car's pace being poor. Pantano's season was dogged by
sponsorship problems. He missed Canada due to a lack of finance,
Timo Glock stepping in and scoring two
points on his debut. Later in the season, the German replaced
Pantano for good. The team finished ahead of only Minardi in
2004.
After the
Ford Motor Company's
decision to put
Cosworth up for sale,
Jordan had been left without an engine deal for
2005. However, at short notice,
Toyota agreed to supply Jordan with
engines identical to those in the
Toyota
F1 cars. At the beginning of 2005, the team was sold to
Midland Group for US $60
million.
The Jordan name was retained for the
2005 Formula One season, before
being changed to
MF1 Racing for the
season. Throughout 2005 journalists questioned whether Midland were
in Formula One for the long haul. Rumours circulated throughout the
season that the team was for sale, and that
Eddie Irvine was interested in buying them. The
year also saw the induction of two new rookie racers,
Narain Karthikeyan and
Tiago Monteiro. 2005 merely confirmed
Jordan's status at the back of the grid. A final podium came in the
farcical race at
Indianapolis, Monteiro leading home a Jordan 3-4. Monteiro
managed a welcome eight place at Spa to give the team its last ever
point. The final grand prix for the team saw a low-key exit,
Monteiro not scoring and Karthikeyan crashing out. Over the years
Jordan introduced many star names to the sport, something that will
not be forgotten. Jordan also has a link with the leading German
drivers of the era, with
Michael
Schumacher,
Ralf Schumacher,
Heinz-Harald Frentzen,
Timo Glock and
Nick Heidfeld all driving for the team.
Notable Sponsorship
From 1996 to 2005,
Benson
& Hedges was the primary sponsor of Jordan. At races where
the ban on cigarette advertising was in force, the name was
substituted for "Bitten & Hisses" (in when Jordan's mascot was
the snake Hissing Sid) or the names of the team's drivers,
Giancarlo Fisichella and
Ralf Schumacher, with additional 'S's,
"Buzzing Hornets" (while the mascot was an un-named hornet from to
), "Bitten Heroes" (during , when the team's mascot was a shark),
and from onwards 'Be On Edge'
(
BENS
ON &
H
EDGES). It was in the sponsor's first year that
the team coloured their cars in the gold of their cigarette packet
and then switched to yellow after that.
For , title sponsorship went to delivery company
DHL, before reverting back to Benson & Hedges.
Complete Formula One results
(
key) (results
in
bold indicate pole position)
References
- http://www.themagicofsenna.com/senna/suzuka.html
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/3117665.stm
_qualifying_at_USGP_2005.jpg/180px-Monteiro_(Jordan)_qualifying_at_USGP_2005.jpg)
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