18/11/2024
NEWS STORY
Former team owner Eddie Jordan says he hates F1 bosses for what they have done to the sport.
In particular the Irishman cites the regulations, which he claims have produced 1000kg "tractors" that fail to excite the senses.
A former driver who subsequently formed his own F3 and F3000 teams, Jordan gave numerous drivers their first big breaks before they went on to achieve much, much more... we're talking the likes of Senna... Schumacher.
In 1991 he formed Jordan Grand Prix and in that debut season took on a young German by the name of Michael Schumacher to replace regular driver Bertrand Gachot who has been imprisoned for assaulting a taxi driver. Jordan only had Schumacher for that one race before Benetton stepped in, but over the years that followed the likes of Rubens Barrichello, Eddie Irvine, Damon Hill and Heinz-Harald Frentzen drove for the Irish outfit.
Its best season was 1999 when Frentzen finished third in the driver standings as did the team in the constructors', of its four wins however undoubtedly the most memorable was Damon Hill's at Spa in 1998
Struggling financially the team was sold to Alex Schnaider's Midland Group in 2005 for a reported $60 million and a couple of years later Jordan reappeared as a pundit for the BBC alongside his work as a columnist for F1 Racing and other TV work.
In 2016 he joined Ch4's fledgling F1 team and has since launched the Formula For Success podcast with David Coulthard.
In his new media role, Jordan has always courted controversy, while his predictions and insights have been somewhat hit and miss. However, there has never been any doubt about the Irishman's love for the sport.
Now, speaking in the latest episode of the Formula For Success podcast, Jordan has hit out at the current state of the sport, and in particular the regulations.
"As far as I'm concerned, shame on the regulations, shame on the organizers and shame on the people who have Formula 1 buried deeply in their soul," he declares.
"They've allowed this sport, in my opinion, to go to a step that may never come back from here, and I absolutely hate them for it."
Recalling the days when "the ground shuddered" as the cars waited on the grid ahead of the green flag, Jordan blames the size and weight of the current machinery, which he compares to tractors.
"It absolutely moved underneath you, such was the element of the power transmitted to the noise, to the sound, to the surface, it just absolutely went through your body," recalled the Irishman.
"My God, when you were at a race, and let's say you were at Silverstone, even if you were not inside the grid and you were outside on the grandstand, and the race started, those V10s!
"It was sex on wheels," he continued, "and that's what motor racing was for me and that's what I enjoyed so much.
"Will we ever get back to the V10s? Probably not," he sighed. "We're too cowardly, what's going on at the moment, whether it's regulations or it's this that and the other."
Of course, fans of a certain vintage will go back even further lamenting the disappearance of 12... even 16 cylinder engines.
The ground still shudders before a race however, only it is to the beat of a DJ seeking to whip the crowd into a frenzy as the race increasingly becomes the backdrop to a 'happening'.
While Liberty seeks to monetise every single aspect of the sport, fully aware that it is the young who have the money and are willing to part with it, the teams are fully complicit.
In Jordan's day it was the teams versus Bernie (F1) and Max (FIA), now the teams are fully aligned with Liberty and as a result it is the sport that is the loser.