He shut his eyes as he settled into the 747’s fully-reclining seat, relieved at last that he could turn off his mobile phone, order a glass of wine and think it all through.

The last two weeks had passed in a blur. The talks with GM and Cadillac now seemed an age away. His mind instead was full of terms of agreement, conditions of contract, fiduciary undertakings. And confidentiality clauses. Not being able to talk about it beyond his own, tiny circle had been the worst part. He hadn’t been able to sleep at night and he could feel a sore throat worsening as a result. This was, though, without doubt the biggest deal of his life and his intuition told him to expect it to collapse at any moment. To prevent that total secrecy was essential. No one – least of all the guys at BAR – should get a whisper of it.
"4A sir. That’s right here."
He looked up with a start. Another passenger was being shown to his seat. He froze. It was a BAT board director! And another ! He recognised them from the Barclay days! And a third! They were all on this flight to Japan!
And there was Flavio! He couldn’t believe it! It was like a Formula 1 paddock up here at the sharp end. Midweek, evening flight – and the whole bloody paddock was on the flight. "Ciao Eddie! What you up to, eh?"
He thought quickly. No Japanese sponsors this year, apart from Mugen. So the tyres it would have to be. "B-B-Bridgestone", he blurted, "Off to do the deal for next year."

Thus Eddie Jordan made his momentous trip to Tokyo – the big one, the one that would transform the life of Jordan Grand Prix. It was only two weeks before that Honda had responded to his now-regular suggestions, They wanted to talk about a factory deal from 2001 onwards. Factory engines. Full works support. Everything the team needed.
What had changed? As ever, he mused, as he sipping his Merlot, it was a combination of things. Nobuhiko Kawamoto, now retired as president of Honda, Had undoubtedly played his part. It seemed that the Japanese concept of employing ex-presidents as ‘consultants’ was very different from that of western companies. Kawamoto, obviously, was still a man of enormous influence. He understands F1, what’s more, and Eddie had always suspected that Kawamoto liked the way Jordan had gone about its business: they’d always had few frills, kept the head count low and had worked closely with outside suppliers.

BAR, by contrast, were all graphite and glitter, And nothing was direct. The engineering was Reynard – a separate deal. The composites likewise. It would probably be the same with sponsorship and PR, not to mention driver management. That, however, was not Eddie’s problem. All he knew was that, at Jordan, everything is under one roof. You know and you see what you get.
Honda probably would have liked that, once they had appreciated the differences.

He gazed out of the window. It was dark outside, but it would be a short night. He lowered the shutter.
Ron Tauranac, too, would have been influential. Dear old Ron. If you look back at Brabham’s success from 1962 through to ’70, Ron’s record is almost without blemish. Jack (Brabham) was the driver-engineer; Ron translated Jack’s genius into simple, reliable racing cars. Honda had grown to love him during that ’66 Formula 2 period, of course, when Jack and Denny Hume had won virtually every race they had entered. Honda and Ron had been close ever since.
There was no denying Ron’s recent interest in what was happening at Jordan. Eddie thought back to the moment last autumn when he had first heard about the ‘exclusive’ BAR-Honda deal. The news had hit him like a blow to the solar plexus, and the next few days had passed in a daze. He’s put himself in massive-optimism mode, explaining to his staff and associates how competitive the team would be with the latest version of the Mugen Hondas. Jordans engines would benefit as a result of the BAR deal, he told them. And then, on the track, Jordan would show that they can build better, faster cars than BAR. To himself he made the vow that he would do all he could to change the minds of the Honda main players. In the meantime, he would look for engine alternatives.

It had been reasonably promising. Cadillac were interested -but what engine would they use? Building an engine from scratch was difficult enough for BMW, let alone a company totally new to F1. He’d talked to Mercedes too, suggesting that it would be beneficial to them if they supplied two teams.

Simultaneously, he had got to know the Honda Research and Development and HRD (Racing Development) engineers at recent races – Takefumi Hosaka, the managing director of R&D; Kazutoshi Nishizawa, HRD’s technical director and a familiar face from the Williams- and McLaren-Honda days. And Yasuhiro Wada, the new manager of Honda’s Motor Sports Division; and Paul Ormond, of course, head of PR for Honda UK. Considering that he rarely attends events, Paul’s understanding of racing is remarkable. Of Yoshinobu Noguchi, the man who had wanted Eddie eventually to resign from Jordan in the deal proposed in mid-’99, there was little to be seen, although Noguchi-san had been friendly courteous when Eddie had recently met him in Japan.

So now it was all change, an not even the impending departure of Mike Gascoyne seemed to have dimmed Honda’s enthusiasm for a restructured deal. This was the crucial trip. He would be returning to England either with a contract ready to be ratified by the lawyers – or with nothing. And, hopefully, the BAT guys would not have expected a thing.

It was on Wednesday 28th June that BAR’s chief designer, Malcolm Oastler, convened a meeting of all team and factory personnel. No longer, he would say, were Honda supplying engines to BAR on an exclusive basis; they would, from 2001 onwards, be sharing the engine with Jordan.
"Ten months ago, Craig Pollock told us that he had a three-year exclusive deal with Honda," replied one brave employee. "What has happened?"
"I can’t answer that", replied Oastler. "You’ll have to talk to Craig."

"I suppose I’ll now have to talk to you about next year," joked Jacques Villeneuve. It is Thursday afternoon at Magny-Cours and Eddie, in a dark grey suit, open-neck shirt and black suedes, is bouncing from TV crew to journalist and back to TV crew with the ease of a Michael Schumacher.
"I suppose you could say that this is the most important and significant event in the history of Jordan Grand Prix," he would say.
"I am absolutely delighted. To be working with a company like Honda is exactly Jordan Grand Prix need to take on the likes of Ferrari and McLaren. Will Honda have an equity participation in the company? I can’t foresee the future, but, yes, we would consider that if that was the way our partnership developed. I’m also delighted to have renewed our contract with Bridgestone. We’ll be building an all-new car next year, of course, and I believe now we have all the components we need to do the job."

Sunday was a bitter-sweet moment for Eddie Jordan. His cars finished sixth and seventh, driven to the absolute, two-stop-limit by Jarno Trulli and Heinz-Harald Frentzen. For the first time this year Jacques Villeneuve’s BAR-Honda finished ahead of the Jordans on the road and, ordinarily, it would have been depressing. Twenty-five bhp down on the factory engine and probably 20kg heavier, the Mugen Hondas had for the first time this year been outraeed to the finish. Ralf Schumacher’s BMW-Williams was in there too, now proving at least as quick as the Mugens in terms of power and lighter still again. The result would have been painful but for the knowledge that it will all soon be changing.

In the Jordan motorhome afterwards, chief designer Mike Gascoyne wore a smile.
"It was nice to finish today. We perhaps could have done a better job with the set-up, because both drivers blistered their rears, but overall we got about as much from the cars as we could."
Did he have mixed feelings now, with the Renault deal in the bag? "My decision is made and I’m moving on," he said, "I think that the right think for me. It’s nice, though, to have been a part of this Honda deal. I think we’ve proved this year, and last year, that we can do the job. It’s been a bit disappointing in terms of results do far in 2000, but mostly it has been little things that have gone wrong. I think we’ve proved that this car is just as strong as it was last year."

"Jarno was just saying how he couldn’t live with Jacques on the straight," added Eddie, now munching a Mansell-like cheese and Branston roll. "And suddenly that makes me very happy. We’ve got a development engine and a new aero package for the next race and I can’t wait. Now come on, you lot, le’ts go."
Eddie’s family, present at Magny for the first race in the rest of his life, gathered his belongings and headed for the turnstiles.