Jordan, Formula One's 'rock 'n' roll' extrovert

LONDON : Eddie Jordan was nicknamed 'Flash' as a boy and the Irishman brought a blast of 'rock 'n' roll' to Formula One in the 1990s as a flamboyant team owner shaking up the motor racing establishment.

The charismatic boss, who died of cancer on Thursday at the age of 76, will always be the man whose fledgling, cash-strapped team gave future great Michael Schumacher his grand prix debut in 1991.

He will also go down in history as the newcomer in a "Piranha Club" world who had to stand and watch as the German was strong-armed away to Benetton, where he then won two of his seven titles.

Behind the fast-talking wheeler-dealer, a boss who enlisted glamour models to generate tabloid newspaper coverage at a time when tobacco sponsorship paid the bills, was also a man with serious ambition.

Often cynical about the business of motor racing, describing his cars as "high-speed billboards" to entice sponsors, he was a character whose loveable rogue image won fans even if some saw a different side.

A man who might wear a large and very fake designer watch to a court hearing questioning his integrity, Jordan was also a natural pundit - offering titbits of gossip and inside information with some notable scoops.

He knew when to crank up the noise, reporters often on the receiving end of broadsides peppered with expletives in the manner of a man spoiling for a Dublin street fight.

Jordan played drums in a four-piece band, 'Eddie and the Robbers' - a jokey reference to his perennial efforts to raise sponsorship and funds to keep the team afloat - and wore a wig from boyhood after his hair fell out.

"He was an honest, trustworthy guy. Somebody that I would trust with anything I've got," former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, something of a kindred