Christian Horner has paid tribute to Eddie Jordan after the former Formula 1 team owner passed away after a battle with cancer.
Jordan announced in December that he had been diagnosed with bladder and prostate cancer and he tragically died at the age of 76 in Cape Town. Red Bull team principal Horner is among those who have paid tribute to Jordan, whose Jordan Grand Prix team competed in F1 between 1991 and 2005.
In a touching post, Horner recalled meeting Jordan for the first time when he was a driver and how he could have bought the Jordan Grand Prix team. “Very sorry to hear Eddie Jordan has sadly passed,” Horner wrote on Instagram.
“Eddie was a hugely colourful character who I first met in 1991 as a young driver at his then new factory after his first year in Formula One. His advice, ‘get a good sponsor… welcome to the Piranha Club!’
“I was fortunate to overlap with him when I came into Formula One. He was in the twilight of his F1 career race wise (indeed he even tried to sell me his team!) but went into other media activities where he was always full of energy and fun to work with.
“Formula One has lost a legend and we will miss his wit and his Irish charm. On behalf of Oracle Red Bull Racing we send our sincere condolences to Marie and the children at this sad time; our thoughts are with them. God speed Eddie!”
Speaking to Motor Sport Magazine in 2012, Horner revealed he and Jordan did have talks over potentially buying his team in 2004. However, Horner described the deal as “frightening and improbable” and he ended up joining Red Bull the following year.
“After three winning seasons in F3000 it was time to raise my sights, and I started thinking how I could make a move somehow into F1,” Horner explained. “I’d got to know Bernie [Ecclestone] a bit, representing the F3000 teams when we needed to talk to him, and I asked him what he thought.
“He told me Eddie Jordan was keen to sell, so I went to see EJ. But his numbers were just ridiculous. I mentioned it to Helmut, and he said, ‘That’s interesting. Dietrich is thinking about changing Red Bull’s F1 involvement.’
“At that point they owned a chunk of Sauber, and were sponsoring Christian Klien at Jaguar. So Helmut set up a meeting in Salzburg and I met Dietrich for the first time. It was all very amiable, he gave me plenty of time, and we seemed to get on well.
“His understanding of F1 was very acute. We had a chat about Jordan, but he said, ‘That doesn’t look interesting for us. We might have an opportunity with Jaguar, we’re looking at that.’ After that I heard nothing more for a while.
“I continued to talk to EJ, but that just became more and more frightening and improbable. I was also putting Arden’s GP2 programme in place, and I’d signed Heikki Kovalainen and Nicolas Lapierre. Then, just before Christmas, Helmut asked me to fly to Salzburg and see Dietrich again.
“I detected he had a degree of frustration with the senior management he’d inherited from Jaguar, team principal Tony Purnell and managing director David Pitchforth. Very quickly he outlined his vision for Red Bull in F1, and he offered me the role of team principal.”
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