The car that kickstarted Jordan's giantkilling

The Jordan 197 was strong right out of the box and was good enough to win on the right weekend if everyone did a good job. At the initial Jerez test the car wasn't quite ready, so Ralf Schumacher, who was a rookie for 1997, got some mileage in the '96 car.

Then he got in the 197 and, after the shakedown laps, on his first proper run he found it was a massive improvement in terms of performance and driveability. When he came in he had a huge smile on his face.

The 1997 season was our third with Peugeot engines, and during the previous two years we had built up a good relationship with them. So, I was able to allocate much more of my time to the Jordan 197 than the '95 and '96 cars. There's only so much time, and there were other priorities for those two years as building a relationship with a new engine supplier is never easy.

I was still responsible for both of them, but for the 197 we needed to take a step forward. I went to every windtunnel test and really tried to understand the car aerodynamically in every detail. Working with others, I was involved in everything - car layout, transmission, suspension geometries, etc - and set objectives for what we wanted to achieve.

The 1996 car, a bit like the 2017 Mercedes, was a bit of a diva and performed well sometimes but didn't others. It was tricky to get the best out of it, but we learned a lot of lessons.

So, for the '95 and '96 cars we focused on working with Peugeot, but the 1997 car was different. The whole package worked well and, as a team, we built a car that we were pretty proud of. It was close to a clean sheet of paper, and it had to be.

Peugeot was putting us under a lot of pressure to perform, so I said that once a month I'd give them an update of what progress we'd made. Even 20 years ago, it was really all about aero, so at each windtunnel test we'd produce a report sheet for the management of Jordan and Peugeot. And when the car hit the track, it achieved all those goals. More importantly, it was a solid package and it was understandable - we could usually get it running quite well at the track.

During pre-season testing we never ran the car on low fuel and fresh rubber, so when we got to the first race in Australia we struggled in qualifying. But we tested at Silverstone afterwards and sorted out the balance in that trim and after that the car was a joy to work with.

Today, you'd say that it was about getting the best out of the tyres but that would have just been an excuse - basically it was about getting the car balanced to allow the driver to attack from the first corner of the lap.

During that test I went up to Copse, which was then the first corner at Silverstone, and to see the car turn in there in seventh gear with just a touch of left foot braking was amazing. It was so fast, and because I knew every nut and bolt on the car and how hard they were working it made you want to look away.

We had Giancarlo Fisichella alongside Ralf, so it was an inexperienced driver line-up. Ralf was a rookie and Giancarlo had half a season at Minardi under his belt, but I always loved to run young, hungry drivers so that wasn't a problem and they were both fantastic for us.

Ralf was a bit of a challenge. I think the best way of putting it was that Fisi had a lot of finesse, but Ralf was a bit of a gorilla! With the best will in the world, while he was Michael's brother and he wanted to do the job like his brother, he wasn't his brother. But he was a very competent driver.

Ralf drove the wheels off the car all the time. I remember him testing the 1996 car at Magny-Cours and breaking gearbox dog rings constantly. He was able to go through the second corner there braking with his left foot and going down two gears without lifting the throttle!

I remember telling him that he had to give the car a clue as to what he wanted it to do and whether you wanted it to go slower or faster! But that was Ralf - exceptional bravery and a good left-foot braker.

Fisi could do great things but when something else other than F1 got into his mind, it did distract him. His temperament was a bit touch-and-go then and it was a question of how to manage him.

Had Rubens Barrichello stayed with the team, it's possible we might have got a win. It's not that he was more talented, but he was ready

The two were at the same point in their careers and were often at loggerheads with each other, so keeping them both content and happy kept us busy throughout the season. Giancarlo finished second at Spa and third in Canada, with Ralf third in Argentina after they collided with each other.

The German Grand Prix at Hockenheim was the best race we did. Fisi started second after qualifying just 0.023 seconds off Gerhard Berger's Benetton-Renault. He led after the stops, but spent too much time looking in his mirrors and Berger caught and passed him. Berger really was inspired that day. Then Fisi got a puncture from running over a piece from Jan Magnussen's Cosworth engine and tore up the sidepod.

We also had the second in Montreal and you could always tell a Jordan, even through to its Force India days, suited those types of tracks. Everything about aero design is about what level of efficiency you find acceptable and we were always able to exploit that well. Fisi was able to finish second at Spa as well.

But the car was also strong at Monaco, which is a high-downforce track - Fisi qualified fourth and Ralf was eighth - so it was in the ballpark across the board. With those qualifying positions there should have been an opportunity there but the race turned out wet and after our first pitstops Fisi struggled to get the tyres up to temperature.

The race that is also memorable for the wrong reasons was Argentina. Ralf finished third, but only after a collision with Fisi that put him out of the race.

Fisi was ahead and he was slow coming off one of the corners, Ralf decided to take advantage and dived up the inside into the next right-hander. Fisi turned in and they clashed.

Ultimately, I blamed Ralf for making the move, but at the same time Fisi should have been willing to give it up because he had made an error. It did damage the relationship between the two of them and it was difficult to get them working together during the rest of the season.

Without that, we'd have been second and third. Jacques Villeneuve faded badly at the end of the race because he was ill and held on to win ahead of Eddie Irvine's Ferrari, so both our drivers could have been in that battle and who knows what might have happened.

Had Rubens Barrichello stayed with the team, it's possible we might have got a win that year. It's not that he was more talented, but he was ready. He certainly wouldn't have had the Argentina collision and would have handled leading in Germany just that little bit better. And remember, he finished second in Monaco in the Stewart - perhaps he could have gone one better with Jordan?

There were three or four occasions that season where if we had a driver like Rubens who was more experienced and cooler under pressure it might have changed things. But I'm not criticising Ralf and Fisi, even though I was very annoyed in Argentina. As a driver you have milliseconds to make a decision after all.

So Argentina was potentially the biggest lost opportunity, but Hockenheim was potentially the biggest gain because we actually had the pace to win there.

The sad thing was that we couldn't build on it. The relationship with Peugeot, engineering-wise, had got to a great place and we were working well together but it wasn't to be. Eddie Jordan tried to get more money out of them and Alain Prost had his team, then the French got involved - so it didn't go well.

The Peugeot engine was certainly a good one by 1997. I don't know exactly where it stood, but it was certainly up there and capable of mixing it with the best.

Jordan did go on to get its first win in 1998 with a car that was better than the 197, but the season started with all sorts of problems that took time to sort out thanks to the change to Mugen-Honda.

The Jordan 197 was certainly a good enough car to win, and it's a shame it didn't. But it was a very pleasurable season to look back on and the development plan went well, so it still goes down as an enjoyable year in my book.