“Sensational. But first he lied to me.”
Eddie Jordan’s Formula 1 team famously handed seven-time champion Michael Schumacher his debut at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.
It turned out to be a one-off race for the team before the talented German was poached by Benetton.
A week before the race at Spa, Jordan driver Bertrand Gachot had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for a road rage incident in London.
Eddie Jordan called up the 22-year-old Schumacher, who was a Formula Three title winner and contracted to Mercedes.
However, in 2021, Jordan revealed to F1 Insider that he would not have given Schumacher his debut had he known a crucial piece of information about his experience at Spa.
He said:
“Sensational. But first he lied to me.
“I had asked him if he had ever been to Spa. I meant, of course, if he had driven there before. He simply said yes. Okay, he wasn’t cheating, but he had never raced there. If I had known that, I wouldn’t have let him drive.
“In my opinion, it was impossible to get to know the most difficult track and a new car in one weekend. His seventh place on the grid was therefore exceptional.
“His experienced team-mate [Andrea] de Cesaris, who wasn’t exactly considered slow on the scene, didn’t stand a chance. Seventh place was like pole position for us.
“Unfortunately, Michael’s race only lasted 500 metres. Then the clutch was burnt. My mistake. I had saved in the wrong place at the time.
“At his 300th grand prix 20 years later, I handed him a new one, symbolically. Michael took me in his arms and said ‘Eddie, nobody would have thought back then that we would still be here’. There were tears in my eyes.
Dubliner Jordan then went on to describe just how good this future legend of the sport was in his earliest days as an F1 driver.
He added: “The test drive before [Spa] was a wonder of the world. I had only experienced such a presence of a young guy, such talent, such incredible speed, such confidence once before – with Ayrton Senna.
“With both of them, it was like suddenly turning on the lights in a dark room. Michael drove incredible times straight away in an old overall of John Watson.
“We gave Michael a lot of laps at his first test in Silverstone because we were afraid he wouldn’t be able to do it. Then his race engineer called me and said ‘Eddie, something’s wrong here – either they’ve shortened the course or this kid is incredibly fast’.”
