The F1 podium-finisher that gave Jordan stability in a year of chaos
The Hart-powered Jordan 194 gave the team hope that the good times were just around the corner. Its 1994 steed wasn’t the start of a move up F1’s pecking order - even if the car did earn the Silverstone team a first pole position. But, as STUART CODLING explains, it did provide a platform for Jordan to become a manufacturer-supported squad.
After a brilliant, giant-killing maiden season in Formula 1, Eddie Jordan’s eponymous team slipped to the tail of the field and survived several brushes with bankruptcy. Gary Anderson and his tight-knit group of talented engineers hadn’t forgotten how to design a competitive car and the svelte, agile Jordan 191 hadn’t been a fluke – but Formula 1 technology was rocketing away from Jordan’s meagre financial means. 1994 would provide a turnaround of sorts.
This was the benighted season in which the late Max Mosley’s FIA strove to rid F1 of the electronic systems which had elevated car speeds to potentially dangerous levels and dialled driver skills down in the performance mix. Among the measures was a sentence which remains in the rulebook to this day: “The driver must drive the car alone and unaided.”
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