Grapevine: Schuey Kept the Bailiffs at Bay, Says Jordan

Michael Schumacher was a gamble who kept the bailiffs at bay, his first team boss Eddie Jordan has recalled.

The Irish entrepreneur gave the German his big break at Spa in Formula One in 1991, a year after he started his team from a lock-up garage, when Schumacher was a Mercedes-backed sportscar driver. Jordan's Bertrand Gachot had been arrested for assaulting a London cab driver and the team urgently needed a replacement for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Schumacher's resourceful manager Willi Weber persuaded Jordan to give his man a test and the rest was history - although Jordan suggested that he had been pushing on an open door.

"It's very hard to judge the talent of someone who's not out in the fray all the time. And Michael wasn't," he recalled at a Belgian Grand Prix news conference. "But I wasn't in an easy position. I was desperate. I needed a driver, I needed a driver who had some money.

"At that particular race back here 10 years ago I had no cars that morning because the bailiffs had taken them and locked up the truck because I had no money," continued Jordan. "They claimed I owed money to somebody.

"We needed a few quid and Mercedes, God bless them, paid and I gave Michael his chance and he buzzed off afterwards and got a few more quid and we're still friends."

Bicycle Rider

Schumacher made an instant impression, despite the fact that he had previously been around the daunting circuit only for two laps on a bicycle. He outqualified experienced Italian teammate Andrea de Cesaris and was snatched out of Jordan's clutches by Benetton immediately afterwards.

He won titles with them in 1994 and 1995 before moving to Ferrari and taking two more. Jordan said he was surprised but could understand why other teams had not snapped up Schumacher earlier and he suggested such a champion could still be overlooked today.

"I guarantee there's nobody here who knows too much about what's happening in sportscars at the moment and it was no different then," he said.

The German, who clinched his fourth title in Hungary this month, is now one of the world's most highly-paid sportsmen and Spa is his favourite circuit. While he has won here four times, his appearance in 1991 was also the start of Jordan's undimmed love affair with the Belgian circuit in the mist-covered forests of the Ardennes hills.

"I want the Grand Prix season just to be at Spa in the future, I'd have a chance of fighting for the Championship," said Jordan. "I don't fancy going anywhere else. It's just brilliant here. We had our first pole position, I won a Formula Three Championship here in 1987, in 1989 I won the Formula 3000 Championship.

"First ever win here, first ever first-second - I haven't had any since then - and finished second with Giancarlo Fisichella as well," he added.

Briton Damon Hill led a Jordan one-two at Spa in 1998 with Ralf Schumacher.

"It's been super. I don't want to go anywhere else."