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Date Of Birth: 10 November 1965.
Place Of Birth: Newtownards, Northern Ireland.
Residence: Dalkey in Ireland, Bologna in Italy, a boat kicking around the Med.
Marital Status: Single, 1 daughter - Zoe.
Toys: Ferrari 288GTO (reg B1
GTO), Ferrari F355 (reg RXI 355), Ferrari Daytona, Yamaha Jet Ski, about 6 moptorbikes,
a yacht called the Anaconda, Helicopter (reg EI-IRV), Falcon Private Jet.
Eddie started racing in 1983, at the age of 17, in his father’s Crossle Formula Ford car. He went on to compete in Formula Ford championships in Ireland and Britain.
After achieving success as a private entrant in 1987, he earned a Duckhams Oil-sponsored drive with the Van Diemen factory team in Formula Ford. In a successful year, he won the RAC and Esso Formula Ford championships and took first place in the prestigious Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch.
Eddie moved into Formula Three in 1988, driving a Ralt-Alfa Romeo for West Surrey Racing and finished fifth in the British F3 Championship. A high point of the year was winning a heat of the Macau F3 Grand Prix.
1989 saw Eddie move up to F3000 with Pacific Racing, but after an unspectacular season he joined Eddie Jordan Racing in 1990. He won the championship round at Hockenheim and finished third in the overall standings.
In 1991, Eddie decided to concentrate on the Japanese F3000 championship, a series in which he was to compete for three seasons. He finished seventh in 1991, eighth in 1992 and second in 1993, when, after a round of the championship was disqualified from the results, he was equal on points with Kazuyoshi Hoshino. The Japanese driver had a greater number of wins, and therefore took the title.
While he was in Japan, Eddie had come to the notice of Toyota, and he was invited to join the company’s sports car team at Le Mans in 1992 and 1993. In 1993, he and his Japanese team-mates led for the first hour and set a new lap record on the way to a fourth-place finish.
His experience on the Japanese circuit helped him gain his first Formula One drive, with Eddie Jordan’s team in the 1993 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. Seventh on the grid, he finished sixth, scoring a championship point in his first-ever Grand Prix.
Eddie was invited to join the Jordan team full-time in 1994. He scored points in the Spanish, European and Japanese rounds to finish 16th in the Drivers’ Championship. Returning to Le Mans once more with Toyota, he joined with Martini and Jeff Krosnoff to take second place by a car’s length after a thrilling race in which their Toyota led for 12 of the 24 hours.
Retained by Jordan for 1995, Eddie completed the season in 12th place in the Drivers’ Championship, having scored his first podium finish with a third in Canada.
In a surprise move, Eddie signed for Ferrari in 1996, partnering Michael Schumacher in a completely new line-up for the team. He started the season well, qualifying ahead of the reigning world champion and finishing third in his first race for his new team. At the end of the season, however, he was 12th in the Championship after scoring points in only three more races.
Matters improved in 1997, when Eddie scored podium places in Argentina, San Marino, Monaco, France and Japan and finished seventh in the Drivers’ Championship. 1998 was even better, with seven podium finishes, including second places in France, Italy and Japan, and four thirds, in San Marino, Monaco, Canada and Britain. At the end of the season, Eddie took fourth place in the drivers’ standings.
Eddie’s best season so far came in 1999. He scored his first Grand Prix victory in the first race of the season in Australia and backed up Schumacher’s win in Monaco to give Ferrari its first one-two finish in the Principality since 1952. Taking over as number one driver of the team when Schumacher was injured in the British Grand Prix, in which he finished second, Eddie won again at the very next race in Austria. A win in Malaysia, together with third-place finishes in Canada, Hungary and Japan combined with other points-scoring finishes to place him second in the Drivers’ Championship, just two points behind Mika Hakkinen.
In September 1999, Jaguar announced that it was entering Formula One as Jaguar Racing in 2000 and Eddie was confirmed as the team’s number one driver. During his first season with the team, Eddie finished fourth at the Monaco Grand Prix and sixth at the Malaysian Grand Prix scoring four points in total.
Grand Prix Record
Starts: 113
Poles: 0
Wins: 4
Fastest Laps: 1
Podium Finishes: 24
Points: 179