Eddie Jordan: the man who launched Schumacher

The man who gave Michael Schumacher his Formula 1 debut, Eddie Jordan, has passed away at the age of 76.

Transcript

00:00I remember then there was a guy called Gerd Kramer who worked for Mercedes at the time and

00:06he was so positive about this guy Michael Schumacher that he kept going on and on and on

00:11about it and so I needed to see what was the situation. I'd seen what he was able to do in

00:18Formula 3 and the German championship but the German championship wasn't always that strong,

00:23not compared to the British championship. But then I'd seen him in sports cars and I'd run the

00:30rule over him. I wanted to see and I felt that he had the talent but I didn't know whether he was

00:35ready for Formula 1 and I didn't know how much time he'd ever driven in a Formula 1 car before

00:40and it turned out that he hadn't. But I did speak to Mercedes and they offered me a chunk of money

00:46to put him in the car and you know I'm not one to refuse money and I put him in the car. So

00:53I would like to think it was all to do with talent spotting but actually it wasn't. We

00:58needed the money. Jordan was hemorrhaging money at that time and Michael got the drive

01:03and we all know what's happened ever since.