1991 Jordan 191

This car was part of a display at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 2000 marking 50 years of Formula One racing.

It's a 1991 Jordan 191, Eddie Jordan's first effort as a Grand Prix constructor, and was powered by a 3,494cc Ford Cosworth V8 engine. The drivers for that season were Andrea de Cesaris and Bertrand Gachot, but when Gachot was unable to compete in the last six races Michael Schumacher made his Formula One debut in the Belgian Grand Prix, Roberto Moreno drove in the next two, and Alex Zanardi took the last three. The fourth place finishes of Andrea de Cesaris in Canada and Mexico were the best results for Jordan that season. At this Silverstone event John Watson drove the car in track demonstration runs.

On 2 August 2015 I showed photographs of John Watson taking to the circuit on one of these demonstration runs.

John Watson

I took this photograph at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996.

On the left is John Watson, and he is being interviewed for Silverstone Television by former Top Gear presenter Chris Goffey. John Watson drove in Formula 1 from 1973 to 1985 for various teams, including Brabham and Surtees, but most successfully for McLaren from 1979 to 1985. He won his first Grand Prix when driving for the Penske team in the 1976 Austrian Grand Prix - the only Grand Prix to have been won by a Penske - but his best season was for McLaren in 1982 when he finished in third place in the World Championship, winning the Grands Prix of Belgium and Detroit, starting in seventeenth place on the grid in the latter race. The previous season he had won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. At this Silverstone meeting in 1996 he drove a Brabham BT34 as part of a track demonstration celebrating Jack Brabham and his cars.

Brabham BT19

The Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996 featured a tribute to Jack Brabham in the year of his 70th birthday. During the weekend of that meeting there were track parades by some of the cars bearing his name and here's a photograph I took during one of those demonstrations.

The first car here, driven by Jack Brabham himself, is the 1966 Brabham BT19 with which he won the 1966 World Championship. Only one BT19 was ever built, designed by Ron Tauranac in 1965 and originally intended to have a 1½ litre Coventry Climax engine, but when the F1 regulations were changed to allow engines twice that size from the 1966 season it was replaced by the 3 litre V8 Repco engine. Following the BT19 is the 1971 Brabham BT34 'lobster claw' car driven by, I think, John Watson. Jack Brabham won the World Championship in the BT19 and remains the only man to have won it in a car bearing his own name.

On 20 May 2014, the day after the death of Jack Brabham, I posted my own little tribute to him which included a photograph of the Brabham BT19 that I'd taken in the paddock at this 1996 meeting.

Jordan 191

The Formula One World Championship started in 1950, and the first race in that Championship was the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in May 1950. The Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 2000 celebrated 50 years of the World Championship with a representative display of cars from each of those five decades and several of them took to the track during the weekend on demonstration runs. Here's one of the cars that took part:

It's a 1991 Jordan 191, the first Jordan Formula One car, and it was driven on the demonstration run by John Watson. John Watson had never driven for the Jordan team but he was the first driver ever to test drive a Jordan Formula One car, in 1990.

Here's John Watson in the pit lane at the start of his run.