Mar.21 (GMM) Eddie Jordan clung on to life until the final moments, some of his best friends in Formula 1 have revealed.
The iconic former team owner and boss, founder of the Silverstone site that today Aston Martin calls home, left the F1 paddock in shock when his family confirmed he had passed away at the age of 76 at his home in Cape Town.
One of his closest friends, and former Jordan driver, Ralf Schumacher, said the Irishman stayed upbeat and engaged with F1 “right up until the end”.
“We talked about the tests and we spoke on the phone a few days ago,” the German told Sky Deutschland. “He was always there and was hopeful that he would somehow make it.
“But towards the end, he lost a lot of weight, and that was very exhausting for him.”
Jordan revealed just a few months ago that he was battling an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer that had metastasised throughout his body.
German journalist Helmut Uhl, of Bild newspaper, said he spoke with ‘EJ’ regularly.
Recalling his final conversation, he quoted Jordan as saying: “They’ve discovered another tumour on my upper spine. I hope they can get rid of it with chemo.
“I have great hope that medicine, with the help of AI, will be able to tackle the cancer.”
However, Jordan also revealed to Uhl: “The older doctors have little hope left, but a young doctor told me that with my positive energy, my positive thoughts, and my fitness, I can do it.
“He believes they can stop the cancer.”
Another of Jordan’s German journalist friends, Ralf Bach, said he, too, caught up regularly. “He often sent me videos of his band,” he recalled on f1-insider.com, “and we spoke on the phone twice a week.
“The last time was three weeks ago. It was the first and only time he ever lied to me. His voice sounded brittle and weak, which he blamed on the chemotherapy, but he was saying ‘I can do this, everything will be fine’.
“Today I know, he lied because he wanted to protect me. He sensed his end. It was his way of saying goodbye. Now you can teach the angels how to rock and roll,” Bach added.
Schumacher says Jordan’s friends have known he was sick “for a while”.
“But when the time came, and it happened last night – thank God his wife and friends were there – it is terrible of course. We all hoped until the very end that it would all work out, because he was a bon vivant,” said the former F1 driver.
“Always full of energy, always playing sports, loving to make music, and right up until the very end, you never really believed that he wouldn’t somehow pull it off, as he always did.”
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