This article was first published in RT in October 2009.
With two races to go in an F1 season of extraordinary highs and lows, it is reassuring to discover that the canary in the BBC’s commentary cage, Eddie Jordan, is still singing loudly seven months on.
A consistently provocative voice during the BBC’s race coverage, the upbeat Dubliner, who once lit up the pit lane in his yellow shirt and slacks, has distinguished a first year in the box with his straight talking, some of it wonderfully off-key in a world where you offend the powers that be at your peril.
From Jenson Button leaving mid-grid mediocrity behind with six wins in the first seven races – more victories than Lewis Hamilton managed in all of last season – to the continuing aftershock of the Renault scandal, where team boss Flavio Briatore was found to have ordered a driver to crash deliberately, Jordan has been telling it like it is.
[image id="2237657" size="landscape_thumbnail" title="Spanish GP X" alt="Eddie Jordan wearing a yellow outfit and headgear, resting alongside a computer." classes=""] Eddie Jordan founded Jordan Grand Prix in 1991.“I have always had a very low concentration level. I say what is in my mind at the time. If it’s controversial it’s controversial, if it’s fun it’s fun and if it is stupid it is stupid. I’m not one of these people who are cloned. You get Eddie Jordan as he comes,” he says, slipping into a moment of third-person pomposity uncharacteristic for a man who breezily ran his Jordan team from 1991 to 2005 as a private venture.
“He absolutely let himself down,” he says of one-time rival and friend Briatore. “I do not know any other person that has abused the management of one of their drivers to this level. It’s not anything I would have thought of.
“Do I believe he has let that friendship down? I do believe that. It was a grave error and I’m sure he understands that now. I haven’t spoken to him since. When I speak to him, we will discuss it. Nothing has changed from that point of view, other than I do want him to explain to me why he did it. He needs to come out and make a full apology.”
[image id="2237659" size="landscape_thumbnail" title="Spanish F1 Grand Prix - Race" alt="Eddie Jordan and Lewis Hamilton sat opposite each other, holding microphones and smiling." classes=""] Eddie Jordan and Lewis Hamilton on the podium following the 2014 Spanish Grand Prix.The Briatore affair overshadowed not only Button’s early-season heroics, which have given him a 14-point lead with two races left, but also the on-track demise of McLaren and Ferrari: not as sudden as Briatore’s crash from grace, but just as unpredictable.
You’ve got to give some credit to Bernie [Ecclestone] and Max [Mosley] here,” says Jordan. “This season they’ve curtailed the ability to win with your wallet by limiting testing and the amount of time teams can spend on development. What do you get? Teams like Brawn and Red Bull able to compete with the big boys. I go to a race not having a clue who’s going to win. You haven’t been able to say that for the last ten years or so.”
What was predicted, though, before the season began was that Jordan would swear on air. He said an Irish bookmaker had opened a book on it. Did they have to pay out? “I don’t think so. I don’t swear as much as some people think. I was always told by my mother that people who swear have less knowledge of the English language.”
The canary’s singing but – in this respect at least – he can guarantee no bum notes.
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