The Jordan 191 and the birth of a Legend

When maverick Formula 2 owner Eddie Jordan decided to take his outfit to Formula 1 he had no idea the first car he entered in the top flight - the Jordan 191 powered by Ford - would have such a massive role in the history of the sport.

Penned by Gary Anderson, the Jordan 191 was a compact and beautiful piece of kit, a very effective F1 car built with a very limited budget, relative to the established F1 teams at the time.

The debutants turned up for the season-opening 1991 United States Grand Prix in Phoenix and were forced to prequalify with eight other drivers trying to make the top-30 for qualifying. Fields were big in those days.

Although the new team struggled in the first four races things turned around dramatically, as they found the sweetspot in the Jordan 191, with Andrea de Cesrais and Bertrand Gachot finishing fourth and fifth respectively in that year's Canadian Grand Prix.

Roll on to the Belgian Grand Prix. Jordan was faced with a problem when Gachot has to do jail time for a fracas with a London cabbie and needed a driver (with bags of money) to fill the seat.

Legend has it that at the time Willi Weber represented an up-and-coming German called Michael Schumacher who was part of the Mercedes sportscar programme and was fastest to strike a test and race deal.

Beating the likes of a keen to return Keke Rosberg, while British media were lobbying for up-and-coming Damon Hill to get the drive

In the end, when the seat became available Weber tapped up Mercedes boss Jochen Neerpasch to help with the £150,000 (€180,000) fee that Jordan wanted for Schumacher to drive Gachot's car alongside de Cesaris for the weekend of Spa- Francorchamps. Dekra and Tic-Tac were also on board.

Schumacher, 22-years-old at the time, and his minders came up with a reported fee of £80,000 (€95,000) to test the Jordan 191 at Silverstone, adjacent to the team headquarters. And the young driver did enough to impress. Thereafter, the parties agreed the abovementioned race deal.

To get it done, Weber informed Jordan that his young charge knew the daunting venue well, when in fact Schumacher had never been to the place during his junior career.

The rookie dialled himself in gingerly in the opening session on an unknown and unforgiving race track which Spa is. He was 11th on the timing screens, half a second down on veteran de Cesaris in the other Jordan 191.

As expected of the noob. Then things changed... Historically!

By the time the chequered flag waved to bring FP2 to an end, he had the paddock buzzing with the fifth-best time, the rookie in his F1 debut, in his second practice session, was only bettered by the established legends Nigel Mansell, Riccardo Patrese, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

While Schumacher was 1.108 seconds shy of Mansell's top time, regular Jordan driver de Cesaris was 2.7 seconds down on his new teammate.

In Qualifying 1, the German in the striking green 7-Up backed Jordan 191, was eighth fastest and 1.1 quicker than his veteran teammate. The kid was special.

Then in Qualifying 2, he went even better when the #32 car popped up seventh on the timing screens - a legend was born that afternoon at Spa-Francorchamps, fittingly one of the most seminal venues on the F1 calendar.

Grim-faced de Cesaris was seven-tenths shy of the rookie in the sister car. Schumacher had qualified seventh for his first F1 race in the Jordan 191. The world took note.

The 1991 Belgian Grand Prix official results show that Schumacher did not even complete a lap in the race, as the clutch expired within sight of the start line - but he had made his mark, fate had an incredible plan for him.

And the Jordan 191 was the car which enabled Schumacher to seize the moment a and begin a remarkable journey of unmatched F1 success on that historic one weekend he had with the car.

Two weeks later, at the next race in Italy, he had been scooped from Jordan by Benetton boss Flavio Briatore and the rest, as they say, is history.

To honour the occasion of Schumacher's F1 debut, Minichamps have released a limited edition 1:18 scale model of the car that launched a magnificent career.

The 'mini' Jordan 191 is an official Michael Schumacher product limited to 300 models, each a meticulously crafted representation of a car many F1 fans tick as their favourite. Available online through the Michael Schumacher Shop or here on Paddock Legends. (Report by Roy Franco)