Jordan seeks upgrade with new driving force

Irrepressible Formula One team head has a new man behind the wheel, a new engine and a top four place in his sights

My meeting with the famously charismatic Eddie Jordan is scheduled to take place in London. Then I get a call from his assistant, Helen, to ask if I can see him at his home in Oxford instead. Then another call to make it Silverstone, where his Formula One team, Jordan-Ford, are based. Then yet another call to say forget Silverstone, how about Heathrow Airport, where Eddie has to catch a 10pm flight to Melbourne? And finally, one last call to say, actually, let's stick with Oxford. There is a light chuckle at the other end of the phone. "Welcome," says Helen, "to the world of Eddie Jordan."

The world of Eddie Jordan is indeed an unpredictable place. Even when I turn up at his house in Oxford, at the appointed hour, the exact venue for our conversation is undecided. First, I am directed by Steve, his chauffeur, into the study. Then his personal trainer, Barry, comes into the study and says Eddie wants to do the interview in his bedroom. By this time somewhat bemused, and not a little disorientated, I make my way upstairs to a master bedroom of considerable acreage. Jordan, an Irishman who refused to kiss the Blarney Stone, preferring to gobble it whole, arrives soon afterwards, a vision in Lycra.

He has just been jogging, he explains, as he always does prior to a long-haul flight. And while we talk, if I don't mind, Barry will massage his left foot, which is connected to his left leg largely by plastic, a legacy of the many crashes he suffered during his career as a Formula Three driver.

It was his own racing background, he adds, which enabled him to recognise enormous promise in the young Michael Schumacher. Jordan gave Schumacher his first Formula One drive, and in Formula Three provided both Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill with a leg-up towards the big time. With Schumacher, Senna and Hill on his cv as a talent-spotter, there is some serious pressure, I venture, on his new driver, Ralph Firman, who makes his Formula One debut in tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix.

"Yeah, it will be a daunting event for him. It will blow his mind. But Ralph is a Nigel Mansell type, a Damon Hill type. He's very calm in himself, and a very calming influence on the team. He and Giancarlo (Fisichella, the senior driver at Jordan-Ford) get on great, because they're both so easy-going. Maybe too easy-going for me, because I'm a firebrand.

"But I've done a lot of talking with him. I've talked to him every day. He went swimming with the sharks [at the aquarium in Melbourne] today. He's a free spirit, and a very capable boy, who I think will soon become the darling of the English media, because he's got everything going for him. I've known his father, Ralph senior, for a very long time, you know. He won three world championships, as a mechanic to Emerson Fittipaldi. And I used to buy race cars from him. There was an infant in the corner in a pram, who turned out to be my driver now."

Jordan's eyebrows, always expressive, practically shoot off his forehead at the improbability of old Ralph Firman's kid driving his car. Of course, Firman has already proved his mettle in Formula Three, where he won a championship leaving Juan Pablo Montoya, for one, in his slipstream.Yet it is anybody's guess how he will cope with the unique demands of Formula One.

Which is more than can be said for the destiny of the championship. Significant rule changes – like disallowing refuelling between qualifying and race, and outlawing traction control from July onwards – have made the playing field more level than it was, but it still has a 1:3 gradient favouring Schumacher's Ferrari. Or to use another metaphor, the drivers' championship remains a one-horse race. Yes?

"No," says Jordan, "I don't think so. The new rules will benefit some and be a disadvantage to others. Tactics are all-important. We want to qualify reasonably well in Melbourne, but it could be that we decide to forgo qualifying, and carry more fuel in the race. But every 10 gallons of fuel you carry equates to 0.3sec per lap. That makes quite a difference.

'Had nothing been done, then maybe it would be a one-horse race. On the other hand, class tells whatever you do with the rules. And I like that. Everyone used to be so anti-Schumacher, so anti-Tiger Woods, so anti-Man United, so anti-Lance Armstrong, but you pass a threshold. There comes a point where you just have to sit back and admire.

"And I have to say that Schumacher, though not the most flamboyant person, has been a great world champion. He hasn't brought the sport into ill repute, he's always well behaved, and he has made Ferrari. That's why I admire him most. Not because he came from Jordan, and we gave him his first shot when no one else even cared about him. In fact, there've been times when I disliked the guy. I felt he treated us so badly.

"But my attitude has changed. Maybe I'm getting docile as I get older. But to me he's gone about it so brilliantly. He's got Ross Brawn to go there, [Jean] Todt to go there, he's immersed himself in a nest of the highest talent and made that team into something that will be remembered for the entire history of Ferrari."

OK, so let me put it another way. Whether or not the championship turns into another Ferrari romp, how does he realistically expect Jordan-Ford to get on? The association with Ford is new, but that should not deflect attention from the under-achievements of recent seasons. Nor from the financial hardship that has forced him to cut 60-odd people from the payroll. Not that Jordan, emphatically a glass-half-full rather than glass-half-empty sort of fellow, likes to dwell on such negatives.

"We have finished in the top six for the last nine years, and I can't possibly think that we would be worse than that this year. We have built the best car we can, and you can't ask for more than that. With the resources and manpower we've got, we've done an absolutely amazing job. Who will win? Ferrari probably, but McLaren are strong. Will it be David Coulthard? He's such a quality guy that I hope he can do it, but he's almost too nice for this game.

"I think Williams have a problem, their cars are not particularly great. They have very strong drivers, although I nevertheless see Ralf [Schumacher] leaving when he can. The dark horses? There is some innuendo that the new Toyota is actually a Ferrari, that one of the top Ferrari people got head-hunted and brought with him certain design concepts. Toyota is certainly a very good engine, so it could be a good year for them.

"And it could be a good year for us. To win the championship? No chance. To finish in the top three, you would have to say, realistically, no. Fourth would be fantastic. Could we sneak a win somewhere? Maybe, but unlikely. To win the race outright with Ferrari still on the track..." Jordan is fleetingly lost for words, which happens about as often as the mouth of the River Liffey freezes over. "We won't know until the first race. The new rules have changed everything."

There are some in Formula One who believe the new rules have gone too far, others that they have not gone far enough. Jordan declines to place a (massaged) foot in either camp. "Max Mosley [the president of FIA, motor sport's governing body] said in old-fashioned draconian style, 'this is what is going to happen'. Actually, it's not a change of rules, more a reinterpretation of the rules, and it's hard to argue against that," explains Jordan. "It's very hard to argue against Max Mosley, full stop. He's a very literate man, a barrister, brilliant with words, and he could be earning fortunes in all sorts of other capacities, yet he takes this honorary position as president of the FIA. After Max, what do we get?"

And what will Formula One get after Bernie Ecclestone, the grand panjandrum to Mosley's chief vizier, I wonder? Jordan chuckles, then sidesteps the question. "Ah, Bernie, you never know whose strings he's pulling. He's just such a fantastic ringmaster. He has this idea of divide and rule, never lets people get too close to each other."

Jordan's respect for Ecclestone is the respect of one canny operator for another. And so I ask him, of all the canny strokes he has pulled, of which is he proudest. "I think," he says, after a short pause, "convincing the board of Ford that they should come back in with an Irish team." He tells me the story of how he went out for dinner 12 months ago, at Monte's in Knightsbridge, with the new chairman of Ford, and how he reminded him, in the company's centenary year, that Henry Ford had been born in a small town in Cork; also the birthplace, by glorious coincidence, of Mrs Eddie Jordan, the fragrant Marie. "And I said to him, 'I think I can make a significant difference to you, your brand, and your sales, in Ireland'. Well, as it happens, one year later, Ford are back to No 1 in Ireland. But I wouldn't have left Honda unless I could absolutely guarantee that we would be called Jordan-Ford. No disrespect to Cosworth (the company, owned by Ford, which makes his engines), but we couldn't be Jordan-Cosworth. And that was quite a major hurdle."

Barry has now stopped massaging, and Jordan has to get to the airport. On which subject, there is just time to ask him about another stroke he used to pull, and for all I know still does. I have heard, I tell him, that there is nobody to match him when it comes to finagling upgrades on aeroplanes. He beams.

"When you have a reputation of being a cowboy, a daredevil, a jack-the-lad, you either want to retain it or dismiss it, and if you dismiss it people think you're being a fraud to yourself. So it was something I had a bit of fun with, particularly on the way to and from race meetings.

"It's more difficult now, but my strategy almost always worked. I always had an economy ticket, but would dress better than the average person in club class, in a smart suit and tie, and always walk on the plane last. Then, when the stewardess says 'just down there on the right', you give the impression you're turning to the right but go to the left, see someone or talk to someone, and have a look to see what seats are unoccupied. Then, if there is one free, you sit down, and once you're sitting down, well-dressed, well-behaved, it makes no different to them.

"But I'll never forget coming out of Barcelona one day. About three-quarters of the people at the back of the plane were from Formula One. My scheme worked as usual. There was just one seat left in club, and it was beside Herbie Blash, the manager of Brabham. Herbie never said anything. But then the doors closed, and I heard the loo flushing, and there was this guy standing over me saying, 'I think you're in my seat'. I said, 'sorry, but that's quite impossible'. I'd lost my ticket, of course, you must never be able to find your actual seat number. Anyway, I had to get up, and the people at the back of the plane like to say I was frogmarched back, which is not quite true, but you cannot imagine the welcome or otherwise that I got. Every catcall in the world. They went absolutely mental!"

Behind his trendy oblong glasses, Jordan's eyes twinkle at the memory. None the less, it is a memory of failure. He hopes to be at the Cheltenham Festival on Tuesday – "every Paddy's second home" – entertaining memories, from Melbourne 2003, of the other kind.

Eddie Jordan the life and times

Born: 30 March 1948, Dublin.

Lives: Has houses in Dublin, Oxford, London and a boat-house in Monte Carlo.

When not at the race track he watches football and rock concerts, plays golf and enjoys horse racing.

1970: Begins career as a banker but switches to motor racing and wins Irish Karting Championship in 1971.

1978: Competes in the British Formula Three Championship at Silverstone with Team Ireland.

1979: Makes Formula Two debut and sets up Eddie Jordan Racing later in the year.

1980: Retires from racing and concentrates on his new venture.

1982: Takes Brazilian Ayrton Senna on board the Jordan F3 team.

1987: Team win the F3 British Championship, with Johnny Herbert winning five rounds.

1991: Makes the step up to Formula One where Jordan capture a remarkable fifth place in the Constructors' World Championship.

1999: The partnership of Damon Hill and Heinz-Harald Frentzen brings Jordan their best season, finishing third with victories in the French and Italian Grands Prix.

2000: A drop in form sees the team finish sixth, picking up only 17 points over the course of the season.

2001: Frentzen is sacked in controversial circumstances.

He says: "I want people to think I'm a bit of an Irish eejit. I don't want people to know whether I'm clever or not. I like them to think I just got lucky."

They say: "It's all go with Eddie. Apart from football or a good movie, he'll sit in front of the TV for five minutes and he's gone, either running or drumming." His wife, Marie.