{"id":249449,"date":"2025-07-09T01:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T01:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/249449\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T01:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T01:14:11","slug":"celebrating-the-life-of-eddie-jordan-just-how-ej-would-have-wanted-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/249449\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the life of Eddie Jordan \u2013 just how ‘EJ’ would have wanted it"},"content":{"rendered":"

For anyone who knew Eddie Jordan personally, had heard stories of his achievements, acumen and antics, or simply knew him as a Formula 1 team owner \u2013 it will not come as a shock that his memorial service in Westminster on Monday was full of laughter, music and warmth.<\/p>\n

Jordan died in March, aged 76<\/a>, while undergoing treatment for cancer, but at Central Hall on Monday afternoon, his spirit was alive and well as his family, friends and F1 acquaintances celebrated his colourful life.<\/p>\n

His former BBC presenting colleagues Jake Humphrey and David Coulthard<\/a> were the double-act in charge, while Jordan\u2019s love for music was front and centre of the day \u2013 performances ranging from Heather Small to Rick Astley, David Webb singing Nessun Dorma, to The Robbers and Jordan\u2019s own band \u2013 joined by Mike Rutherford of Genesis \u2013 playing out the event in his honour.<\/p>\n

His impact on F1 could easily be weighed by the talent of former drivers who flocked to London to be part of the celebrations \u2013 Damon Hill<\/a>, 1996 world champion and the man who delivered Jordan\u2019s eponymous team its famous F1 victory in Spa, spoke on stage alongside designer Gary Anderson.<\/p>\n

Also in attendance were the likes of Jean Alesi<\/a>, Mark Blundell, Martin Brundle<\/a>, Martin Donnelly, Mika Hakkinen<\/a>, Jonny Herbert, Eddie Irvine<\/a> and Jarno Trulli<\/a> \u2013 while, of course, Jordan\u2019s family was central to the occasion.<\/p>\n

James Allen, president of Autosport Business & F1 at Motorsport Network<\/a> and someone who knew Jordan very well, felt the event summed him up to a tee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a wonderful tribute to Eddie. It was great to see so many faces from the last 30-odd years \u2013 drivers and people who worked for the team, people who held Eddie really dear in their hearts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Jake <\/p>\n

Jake Humphrey and David Coulthard led the memorial for Eddie Jordan<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was classic Eddie; you had a thing that leapt around all over the place. A strong emphasis on music but a wonderful contrast of a very serious Irish priest opening the event and leading people in prayer and then having Rick Astley getting the room bouncing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly Eddie could have a memorial that went like that so it was just a fantastic way to see the guy off.\u201d<\/p>\n

A moving video tribute from close friend Bono contained interviews with Jordan, interspersed with memorable moments and family photographs \u2013 \u201cRest in peace, more like rest at pace,\u201d the U2 frontman signed off.<\/p>\n

Old friends from well before Jordan even owned an F3 team had the room in stitches with stories of his early business dealings. This included one tale of using the hearse of a friend \u2013 who happened to also be an undertaker \u2013 as the transport for his karting exploits, which were almost cut short after a crash while Jordan was getting in some extra practice laps, driving the wrong way around a circuit dressed in his pants and boots.<\/p>\n

Guests stood in unison to clap along with Astley\u2019s Never Gonna Give You Up, watched in wonder as performers from Michael Flatley\u2019s Lord of the Dance took to the stage, or waved their arms in the air for The Robbers\u2019 closing Hey Jude.<\/p>\n

It was \u2013 as an emotional Humphrey put it \u2013 just how Jordan would have wanted the day to go; just how \u2018EJ\u2019 would want to be remembered.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

In this article<\/p>\n

Mark Mann-Bryans\n<\/p>\n

Formula 1\n<\/p>\n

Jordan\n<\/p>\n

Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n

Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For anyone who knew Eddie Jordan personally, had heard stories of his achievements, acumen and antics, or simply…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[41621,4199,707,4200,20292,41622,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-249449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-british-gp","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-jordan","13":"tag-silverstone-circuit","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114820629540921145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}