Monday January 31st, 2000

By Alan Baldwin

One of the rarest and least-expected occurrences in Formula One took place on a brightly-lit London theatre stage on Monday.

Eddie Jordan, the ebulliant and talkative team owner, was lost for words.

As the Irishman was preparing to present his new yellow EJ10 car, named to mark his 10 years in Formula One, a presenter carrying a red-bound book appeared from the wings leading a television crew behind him.

"Eddie Jordan, this is your life," presenter Michael Aspel intoned, familiar words to generations of British television viewers as the name of a show charting the lives of celebrities and bringing them face to face with old friends.

"It just shows you, there is a way," the surprised Jordan said when asked later what it felt like to be speechless.

"We'll have to have a major sift through the personnel in Jordan because too many things are going as a joke. The EJ thing I could live with but it (the car) was named when I wasn't there."

The irrepressible Irishman is one of Formula One's true characters, a man with a sense of humour who can always be counted on for a quote or an opinion and who has been responsible for starting the careers of some great drivers.

But he is also totally serious about his racing, an entrepreneur whose rise to the level of the major players came only after the most unpromising of beginnings.

Hundreds of journalists crowded the plush Theatre Royal in London's Drury Lane for Monday's launch - a fact that allowed Jordan to remind observers just how much mileage had been covered since his first season in 1991.

"In that first launch we had 11 people, we had no sponsor and we had no driver. We looked a disaster," he said.

"It prompted one particular journalist at that particular launch to ask 'why do they bother?'

"That has never left my mind. Because it was something that inspired me to create that passion that is inside Jordan."

In fact, Jordan finished fifth in their first season after giving Michael Schumacher his grand prix debut in Belgium as a replacement for the jailed Bertrand Gachot.

Schumacher was promptly seized by Benetton and Jordan were 11th overall in 1992, their lowest ebb.

Since I995, it has been a steady progression from sixth place to fifth, fourth and third last season.

Not bad for a team run by a private entrepreneur, whose sense of fun initially led to him not being treated as a serious contender, and without a major manufacturer behind him.

This season, still with a Mugen Honda engine, they aim to move further up the ladder and give constructors' champions Ferrari and McLaren even more of a run for their money.

Jordan said that, despite several offers for his team in recent years, he would not be selling out or retiring.

"There is nothing quite like singing your national anthem on the podium when you've won a race," he said.

"It is something that is desperately important for me and we intend to hear a lot more of the anthem in the future."

The Irishman also poked gentle fun at his own image, divulging that recent market research into the public perception of the team had asked a range of questions including "have you ever heard of Eddie Jordan?"

"One person answered 'yeah, he's that Irish guy who talks too much," Jordan told the audience.

"Dodgy git, but he always lands on his feet."