Frentzen 99 is arguably one of the greatest stories in F1 history. The Jordan was NEVER the fastest car overall at any point in 1999, yet he was 10 points off the championship lead and took pole for that race with 3 to go. Pretty incredible
He did exactly what we praise Alonso for at higher level. Imagine if he was in Mclaren instead of David Coulthard..but would the Mclaren environment suit him?
Don’t forget McLaren and Ferrari both had more reliability issues than Jordan. Jordan is often fast enough to capitalize their misfortune just like Stewart team has a couple of times. Albeit if their engines lasted long enough. Although it doesn’t take away from his performances in wet conditions like France, which was amongst the top drives like Malaysia 2012 and Monza 2008.
One of my favourite stats about Frentzen is in qualifying for the European Grand Prix at Jerez in 1997, he, Villeneuve and Schumacher all got the exact same time down to the thousandth of a second. Amazing to watch.
I was there. It was also the race where most people - including myself - discovered that Frentzen spoke almost perfect Spanish because his mother is Spanish. Sadly it was also the race where Schumacher tried to knock Villeneuve off the track and had all his points taken away and Villeneuve was given the title. By the way it was also the race where everyone discovered that grid positions for drivers with equal times were decided by who drove the time first, second etc.
@@probablygraham I was there as well. I can remember quite well the crowd’s (including me) reaction to having two identical times during qualifying. Then to have a third identical time, the crowd was wild with amazement. What an incredible occasion.
@Mike - it was strange to say the least. I've been to God knows how many grand prixs over the years and never seen anything like it. I remember 2 other things about Jerez too - firstly it was unbelievably hot, and secondly because the press were expecting Schumacher and Villeneuve to crash on the first corner of the race there were loads of cameramen stood in the gravel inside the circuit, not just behind the barriers and tyres.
Ironically Jordan's ninth place finish in 2003 was partly EJ's fault. He suggested increasing the points past sixth place. If the 2002 points system been in place for 2003, Jordan would have finished 5th not 9th
A little known fact about Heinz-Harald is that the family runs the best known undertakers in Mönchengladbach. Heinz-Harald drove one of the hearses as his private car 😁
I'm quite sure the family owns a creepy castle in the Sterian mtns., where they raise Yetti's. I liked HHF from the start (C2) and was living and dying that season with him, the brake failure really hurt his late season momentum, big hit unt bad timing. I also wanted Alessandro Nannini to eat Mansel, Senna, Schuf and Prost (Chin Chin). He was accessing a 2yr contract offer from Ferrari 17 months before, chopper down. As was Kubica another spectacular run as the Mcrae "lets rally" chant died out slowly. Zanardi an immaculate human spirit. Yet Frentzen lives (in a haunted castle?). The one offs Alesi - Canada. Panis - Monaco, Maldonado - Spain, Herbert (2-3?) 1st Eiffel Mtn 1 WDC; Rosberg 1981, Rosberg 2016, Damon 1996, Jacques 1997, Kimi 2007, Jenson 2009 More underdog victories please. GoGoGo; Carlos, Lando, Oscar, Kmag, Horehey - George etc
Frenzten is one of the most underrated drivers unfortunately. In his youth, he beat Schumacher in Group C. Apparently Senna already told Williams to sign him for 1995, shortly before his death. Unfortunately for Frentzen, that didn’t happen until 1997. Frentzen’s reputation was tarnished by this 1997 season. But as far as I remember, he wasn’t really any slower than Villeneuve. He had several DNFs while comfortably leading races. At some point, Williams then rightly focused everything on Villeneuve. But when judging History, everybody only looks at the scoreboard. 1999 showed how good he was. Yes, he profited from the mistakes of McLaren and Ferrari. But the way he put his inferior car into a position where he could profit is already amazing. The gap between himself and Damon Hill was enormous. And while Hill was no longer the most motivated driver, he was a World Champion and did sit in the same car. It was constantly one little yellow car having to fight it out against two McLarens and two Ferraris, the big guys at the time with a massive budget and people like Brawn and Newey.
I always thought the opposite. I thought he was always overrated, there was always talk about when he was faster than Schumacher in lower series, but I think he found himself in good cars with average team mates, Jordan were able to punch above their weight on certain days in certain conditions running Bridgestones. But he never consistently shamed anyone he drove against in the same team.
I was rooting for HHF in '99, but I think he was outlcassed by Jacques in '97 in qualifying (Jacques had 10 poles iirc?). Sadly, I don't remember their qualifying head to head for '97 and '98.
... and should replace Senna after his death. Frentzen was asked after the Monaco GP, but he declined because he didn't want to abandon the Sauber team after Wendlinger had a serious accident in Monaco. Frentzen should have been more selfish back then!
Nice video. Just one remark. HHF was way better than Herbert in Sauber in 1996. So the comment on Heinz failing to catch the pace of Herbert makes no sense.
When I watched the 2008 F1 season, Kubica was basicaly in the same postion as Frentzen in 1999. I have no doubt Kubica would have won the tittle in 2008 only if BMW evolved their car after Canada. The performances of both Massa and Hamilton that year were most of the time poor, just like Hakkinen and Irvine in 1999.
Almost certainly. The amount of mistakes Hamilton and Massa made, and the consistency and speed of Kubica would've surely taken him to that title. He'd have richly deserved it too.
I wouldn't say Hamilton's performances were poor in 2008, as he had a couple of great races. He only was very inconsistent for some reason. Unlike 2008, McLaren had the fastest car by quite some margin in 1999. I think Irvine had a great season by his standards, even though he clearly lacked some pace compared to Schumacher (but who didn't at the time?), though Frentzen's consistence impressed me most at the time.
@@mrdraw2087 You're right. Hamilton was up and down. Ragged in Japan, pit lane crash into Raikkonen in Canada, crashed into the back of Alonso in Bahrain. In the win that wasn't in Belgium, he half spun, left the track about 4 times, plus that dodgy overtake. France to add to the poor performances and another failed overtake and penalty. Italy was hit and miss. On the other side, he was brilliant compared to the field in Germany, which despite a team error, he still won. China was another fine win that put him closer to the title, while Silverstone was an absolutely outstanding performance that his rivals couldn't match.
HHF is my favorite driver ever, I still can't bear to watch his title hopes slip away. It's great to see such a wonderful look at him here! His 1999 season is the most "into" formula 1 I've ever been.
One thing that really hurt Frentzen's chances of winning the championship was that Jordan was basically a one man team. David Coulthard and all the Ferrari drivers including Mika Salo were able to take away points from other contenders. Damon Hill however was only going through the motions at this point of his career and tried to get to the end of the season without getting harmed. He retired healthy cars on several occasions. I think he even wanted to retire on the spot after the british grand prix but continued for business reasons. With a motivated Damon Hill or another driver who would try to get the most out of a winning car Frentzen wouldn't have to do everything by himself and rely on McLaren and Ferrari constantly messing up.
Very good point. And yes, Hill was meant to retire at the British Grand Prix, but changed his mind after the race and carried on. His struggles didn't help, but there weren't many other options. Jos Verstappen and Shinji Nakano both tested the Jordan as options to replace Hill, and I don't think either went much faster than him.
@@tippersimracing6070 This is correct. Nakano was Jordan's official test driver in 1999, and he wasn't well rated, so they didn't think he'd be good enough to replace Hill. They brought in Verstappen, then a free agent, to test with Nakano at Silverstone after Hill's disappointing French GP, thinking he'd probably be good enough. To the team's disappointment, Verstappen only went a tenth or so faster than Nakano. Hill comes in a few days later and smashes them both by over a second.
@@MasterofSpiders Hill just lacked the motivation and if he put in what he did at say Arrows in 1997, he could of done far better. Jos Verstappen was not really anything special (unlike Max) and he seemed to not have that special spark. And in the test being over a second slower than Hill and not much faster than Nakano baring in mind he was testing the Honda RA99 at the time which had a similar engine to the Mugen Honda, isn't a good look.
@@tippersimracing6070 Hill generally liked a smooth, predicable car and struggled to get that from the 199 for whatever reason. Being yeeted on the first lap after good starts in the first two races of the season (he actually outqualified in Frentzen in Brazil, albeit they were down in 7th & 8th) probably didn't help his motivation and confidence. Says a lot that his four points scoring results in 1999 were his home Grand Prix, and then Imola, Spa & the Hungaroring. 3 places where he nearly always had good results and would've likely been more confident at.
Jordan fan from Ireland here. Eddie and the team are responsible for my enduring love of F1, even if it's not a patch on what it was. So much better in the 90s...
One thing I really admire about Frentzen wasn't to do with his exploits for Jordan but in 2001 just after he had been sacked before the German GP, just so he could keep racing he offered to race the rest of the season for cash strapped Prost for free, as they couldn't afford to pay him his worth. Really just loved racing, really old school driver. I've watched this video countless times, your content is fantastic. Please consider making a Patreon, would love to support your hard work!
It was a wonderful gesture from the man. And thank you! I'm looking into Patreon and would love to get it set up this year. I'll post here and on social media channels when things are more set up!
@@TheMobileChicane I will be sure to keep my eyes peeled my friend :) Don't change what you're doing, once the mysterious yt algorithm smiles upon this channel, you'll get the views you deserve!
@@Duval-In-The-Wall highly recommend his beyond the grid podcast! He goes into detail on how the team was, and how he was able to input & develop the car, though sadly the team was beyond saving financially at that point. His technical insights on the podcast are fantastic. He is really like his own race engineer, incredible depth of knowledge.
@@AnarchistMetalhead he had 2 engines failure that season both times was when he was leading comfortably Plus the controversial penalty at USA 2003 is defo the Championship that got away from JPM and also Kimi as well. Funnily enough MSC won it thanks to the push out of the gravel trap he got at the European GP completely legal at the time of course but still interesting
HHF is my favorite F1 driver of all time that I've seen race in person, simply the way he was able to always extract a little bit more out of every single machine he drove, best example is his 4th place in qualifying in Spa 2001 in that shitbox of a Prost, of course it was partly thanks to the tricky conditions, but still, nailing that kind of lap in that kind of car was class. It really is a shame that this kind of driver always seems to have a permanent contract for bad luck, I'm talking the likes of Jean Alesi, Robert Kubica or Kamui Kobayashi, who knows just how much all these men could have achieved if destiny had been a little bit more gentle on them...
Still remember the moment Hakkinen cries under the tree at Monza 99. And the moment in 21:02 where frentzen loses his brake was happening in front of me, as it was my first GP I ever attending
A lot of people considered him the faster driverrof the Williams pairing Frentzen-Villneuve in 1997 I think Frentzen got the raw speed,but can easily crack down under pressure and made a lot of decisions that were bad from a Business Perspektive: German Tv Host and close Friend of Frentzen Kai Ebel revealed that one of the reasons Villneuve dominated Frentzen in 1997 was because of the psychological pressure he put om him.Villneuve told Ebel this many years later in a Interview. Frentzen also refused to join Williams in 1994 as a replacement for the deceased Senna due to his loyality to Sauber. He said : "This Team brought me into Formula 1 and Wendliger is seriously Injured,so this Team needs me more". Source ( in German,Kai Ebel is relatively well known Germany.for his Role as on-track-reporter together with Nicki Lauda on German Television for most of the Races during the 90s) : th-cam.com/video/8qdZPkcvPig/w-d-xo.html
@@TheMobileChicane you're welcome. i can provide translations of his podcasts if necessary .( was kinda drunk tired when i wrote the last comment,which explains this rough translation) And great content with extremly high production Value so far.from you. Your channel is a Hidden Gem ! Keep it up!
@Kro Rook - it's interesting to hear that Kai Ebel and Heinz-Harald were friends. They're very different characters. I'll never forget an interview on the grid when Kai Ebel asked him what his tactics for the race would be and he put on a poker face, lowered his voice and said "I've got a secret plan. I'm going to try and make sure that all the drivers behind me don't get past, and overtake all the drivers in front of me that I can". 😁
I can imagine younger F1 fans may or may have not heard of HHF. For those who don't know, Frentzen wasn't a complete nobody. He had 3 career wins, 2 with a mid-pack Jordan, and he used to date Corinna Betsch; the future wife of Michael Schumacher. Not bad at all.
The 1999 European GP was definitely a story of "what ifs". Had Frentzen won, he would've been properly in the title fight. Coulthard also a chance to close the 12-point gap to his team mate and Irvine - only to retire. And eventually only Häkkinen scored points (which proved vital in the end).
Well, you can't compare Irvine to Hamilton or Verstappen haha. If it was a 3 way battle, it would be with bottas (in the Merc) Verstappen and Gasly, because Hamilton got injured
I am a Huge Frentzen fan and always rated him as a driver. I was there at Nurburgring in 99 when he put it on pole. I was waving the Frenten Flag (literally) after qualifying and got interviewed by German Radio (they thought I was a German fan, much to their surprise they found out I was travelling from Australia there to support Frentzen). He has gone very quiet as of late, I don’t think he is racing I would love to know what he is doing now and can you still meet him, get his autograph. Thanks for putting this together as I always wondered why both his and Hill’s cars failed that day, we originally thought it was an electrical failure much to my surprise it was a setting for a quick getaway from the start or pits. Any more details on the technology behind this?
As a Ferrari Fan that saw Irvine lose the title in '99, I still regard it as my favourite season, maybe because it was my first full one. Words of appreciation go to Jordan, I always had a soft spot for them. Sadly they are a team of a bygone era, a very different F1 than that of today.
I’ve done the maths with 2010 onwards points frentzen would of won the championship by 12 points and hakkinen would of finished 3rd and not even be in championship fight in Japan
I did toy with the idea of seeing how implementing the top 8 and top 10 point scoring systems would change it, but when I punched the numbers in, I had Irvine coming out on top each time. Maybe I missed something! Or is that with the theoretical perfect season numbers?
@@TheMobileChicane I did it with adding the results for the DNFs frentzen had a pushing the finishes of the original results and it’s came up with 1 frentzen. 247 champion 2 Irvine. 233 3 Häkkinen. 213
I still cannot believe such good content & narration has garnered less than 500 subscribers. Please continue your good work and I wish you much more success and views. P.S. If I had to make a suggestion, I'd prefer your wonderful videos to be between 15-20 mins run time.
I'm Irish and love Jordan but I went through their 13 seasons with a fine tooth comb last year and they didn't even finish 50% of races! That means they didn't finish every second race. If they had fixed this major flaw they could have really kicked ass.
I'm so happy this video has been made about Jordan. As an Irish person, this was a fantastic year of F1 and was something of a golden period of F1 in general. Ireland had both Eddie Irvine and the Jordan GP team challenging for the drivers championship. Alas, it wasn't to be in either case. You're absolutely right about the reliability of the 2000 and 2001 Jordans too. They were probably the third fastest cars for each of those seasons too, but poor reliability and errors from both Trulli and Frentzen ruined their seasons. In my opinion, the EJ11 has got to be one of the most stunning and beautiful F1 cars of all time.
Wonderfully put. The part about the demise of the Little Guy in f1 made me sad, and I'd never seen a lot of the earlier 90s footage. Thanks for the review, quality and insight on par with BBC
I would throw Eddie Irvine into this conversation because if todays points system was used, he is the 1999 World Champin, not Mika Hakkinen . That's how close he came
This is a great video, I have been re-watching the 1998 and 1999 seasons, they were great. Let alone the fact Murray Walker was commentating and providing the orchestra to great racing.
Yes, mostly, I think are few are missing if I remember correctly but it was 4 months ago so I can't remember that well. Perhaps I should go back and have another watch. 94-99 are probably my favourite seasons along with 2009 and 2011.@@ChaufMT
The final part of this video where the 1999 season was reimagined for Frentzen and Jordan had the 'perfect season' inspired me to reimagine the 1995 season. In real life, Jean Alesi lost a lot of points and another two or three wins due to bad luck. In the alternate version (A lot of results were altered), he beats Schumacher to the championship by two points, albeit in controversial circumstances after a collision in Adelaide causes both terminal damage, ironic for Schumacher after the 1994 Adelaide incident with Hill!
@@TheMobileChicane I couldn't believe when I found out years ago that he only won one grand prix! When I was a kid it seemed like he was near the front every week, I'd just assumed he'd won a fair handful
another fun fact! frentzen was in a relationship with schumachers wife corrina before she dated michael! :) i think they both worked at the auto reparo shop that i think corinas father owned!
Massive thanks for an excellent video. I started watching in '94 and after '95 Canada decided Jordan was my favorite. '99 was the highlight of that, after seeing Jordan gradually becoming better every year. Frentzen was my brother's favorite driver, so to see him take Jordan to an interstellar level was especially mesmerizing. And I had just made an elaborate comment on the F1 subreddit about this season 2 days before this gets recommended. Also Damon was someone my friends and I had always despised for some weird juvenile reasons, and to see him replace my darling Fisico to team up with bratty Ralf really was something else. Jordan's first win ánd 1-2 redeemed both of them of course, although I still don't really care for them much. Like I said in the reddit comment Jordan was truely the last underdog private constructor able to push to extraordinary heights, even if the '99 season was one of the craziest unexpected seasons. Williams would be affiliated with BMW and Brawn was really just Honda. All my interest vanished in the next years, with doing other stuff and Ferrari dominance making it boring. Fisico's win was the perfect end to that era for me. To have him celebrate his first with his return to the team that gave him the means for his first success and long career was storybook-like. As was with Rubinho who was my first favorite, it was great to seem them continue to do well and helped get multiple constructor's championships. Eddie truely had an eye for talent, I loved how he later admitted in a podcast wiht Hill that he didn't even want Damon driving for him. Such a great refreshing character Jordan was and still is. I still don't understand why I picked them, it still seems random, but I'm glad it paid off and have the biggest respect for his achievements.
Love this video, always was a fan of him as he actually answered one fan letter my younger brother wrote back in the early 00s when we were kids. He definately had some bad luck in his later years but always was a formidable driver
Honestly 99 Frentzen should never be be forgotten. Minnows like Jordan competing with works Ferrari and McLaren for a world title is nothing short of incredible That’s like Caterham one day fighting for the championship, they were so financially outgunned it was untrue
Great content. I swear, when I saw 1.9 subs, I figured that number was in the millions, not thousands. The Schumacher/Silverstone shunt wasn’t a warm up lap. It was a racing lap that had gotten red flagged. Ferrari and Michael didn’t know about the red flag, which would make any position changes moot anyways. Rough way to get injured really.
I remember when Michael Schumacher, Karl Wendlinger and Heinz- Harald drove the group C mercedes. Michael said that Heinz-Harald was faster than him. Another story of what if?
I don't think so. Remember they were the junior team. The top car was that of Baldi and Schlesser, and they received most of Mercedes (and Sauber) attention.
Great video and some great memories growing up and watching in the 90s. It was genuinely unpredictable. It's a shame that younger people have grown up watching the snoozefest that is Mercedes domination of the sport. The cars sound terrible, are too bloated and you need to wait years for an unpredictable result.
If you grew up looking in the 90s, then you missed the 70s and 80s. Those years were truly unpredictable. In the 90s, F1 was already more gentrified with two teams fighting and the rest accompanying or looking askance, although good races could still be seen.
@@fedecasares You seem to be forgetting in the 70s and early 80s, as long as they didn't blow up the Lotus was basically guaranteed to win. Rose colored glasses get used across every era of F1, but there really hasn't been all that many times in F1 where it wasn't dominated by 1 or 2 teams, the longest period being when everyone was using the Codsworths. When F1 started it was basically all Ferrari and Mercedes. Then you had the almost spec era where F1 was slower than sport cars, but many teams were competitive. After that you had Lotus mostly dominating, with some Ferrari, and Mclaren outliers. Then the Cosworth era, which was extremely competitive for a while. Then the Turbo Era that Mclaren and Williams dominated. Then the mid 90s came along and it was almost all Ferrari and the Michael with some notable, but largely irrelevant, exceptions like Mika, Damon, Kimi and Jean. Then we had the Red Bull's domination, into Mercedes being dominate, and now we have a decently level grid, for arguably the 4th time ever in F1 history, but it's to early to say, next season will be the earliest we can really tell.
Just one thing for the “what if perfect season was carried out by both Jordan and Frentzen” question: Hakkinen having only 65 points instead of 66 before Suzuka, he could’ve been defeated by Irvine with a second place, so Schumacher would very much likely to give up second for Eddie, this way Eddie could have 76 points to Mika’s and HHF’s 75. Despite all this, based on driver and team operating performance, Mika didn’t deserve the 99 title, and neither would Eddie. Only three champion performance that year came from HHF and Jordan. Mika was way better in 2000 when he was defeated by Schumacher and even in 98 when he fully deserved the title.
If we could count a perfect season for both I would add a scenario if Jordan made a better pitstop or a strategy call on Silverstone HHF will receive 3rd which will give 1 more point and could have equal as Irvine, but still lose due to wins count. But for a whole season the real ;what if' would be if Frentzen won Nurbugring and kept his momentum in Sepang and Suzuka. By my predictions in Malaysia it will be a close 3 way battle between Mika, Scumi and HHF for 2nd (keeping that he had the second fastest lap in spare car what would be if he hadn't brake issue with primary car) which will give a 4th place at worst (+2 points). In Japan it will be another close battle between Scumi and HHF (keeping in mind how off the pace Irvine was in that race) which will give 78 points to Irvine 76 and 75 for Mika. Another interesting thing to check 'what if' Jordan was reliable in 2000 due to how many points were thrown by reliability while having at times a pace to rival top teams.
Mate, I watched this season live and Frentzen could've absolutely been champion had things fallen his way. If I remember correctly Panis was looking on for the championship fight a year or two earlier until he broke his leg/legs in Canada. In either of those seasons, we could've had an underdog fairytale story. I always find it interesting Hill beat Villeneuve in 1996, Villeneuve beat Frentzen in 1997, yet Frentzen beat Hill in 1998. All as teammates.
Panis absolutely could’ve! I covered this in my video about Prost Grand Prix. If you assume Panis kept the same form all year, he would’ve been championship runner-up that year!
In the late 90's we all knew that Michael Schumacher was the best driver, even if a lot of us didn't want to admit it....but we were treated to 4 straight years of bad luck for The Michael. 1999 was one of the most exciting since all three contenders were worth cheering for (1997 was my favourite, but I'm Canadian and biased)....the next 5 years made up for all the bad luck, but they were as exciting as Hamilton winning the championship on the 3rd lap of the first race.....
Was a big Hakkinnen fan back then, since Ferrari and Schumacher seemed to be far ahead, with all the sponsor money in the world to help them. But was also only 13-15 years old then, so didn't understand the politics in F1.. Before that I was with Senna. Who is the greatest, in the modern exotic materials F1 cars
Typical British commentary on an Irish Team. IGNORE ITS IRISH. Every other team and where they are from mentioned... of course. There really is something wrong in your brains lads. It's like built in hate. And the Irish of course carry on being better at everything.
Jordan was often extremely fast, but had atrocious reliability and luck. So, it’s weird for me that many who both weren’t and were around at the time remember them as a kind of hapless back marker. They were, not surprisingly, a lot like the pink Force India / Racing Point (which is the Jordan team).
I might be totally wrong but my impression of Sam Michael’s time in F1 is largely one of incompetence. I never understood why we he stayed so long at Williams. Again, I might be wrong so I’m open to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
Little known facts: HHF used to be Corinna Schumacher's boyfriend before she left him for the Michael. HHF's mother is Spanish, but she left the family when he was young. But there's no doubt: HHF was utterly stunning in 1999. He was much, much better than Mika & Eddie like how Kubica was easily better than Lewis and Felipe
launch control in 1999? That's rather interesting to know, as so far I had only heard traction control was allowed following the 2001 French (?) Grand Prix given there was no way to control it.
Also chances are Eddie Jordan Racing could have challenged Roberto Moreno and Bromley for the 1988 F3000 title with Herbert had it not been for his accident at Brands Hatch. Also, there was that time Frentzen flipped off Mark Blundell at the Australian GP of 1995 (with Murray Walker saying it wasn't very polite).
The Jordan in 99 wasn't like Alpha tauri last year, but like Mercedes 2022. Not in the same league of the 2 main teams, but a comfortable 3rd best car, very reliable and ready to capitalize on the others mistake
I have a Jordan Flag from 1991 and I'm Wondering if its worth anything because I can't find another one anywhere online its Green not yellow like every Jordan flag I find. Im from Ireland and Jordan was an Irish team back then .
I was thinking more a race-winning driver who'd been promoted and dumped from a championship winning team, finding refuge at a midfield-tier team who'd had minor success but weren't obvious championship challengers!
Oh the memories! Thanks for this awesome video. Maybe some of you might find my following little story interesting: I'm from Mönchengladbach, hometown of Frentzen, I'm about 9 years younger than him. I really got into watching F1 when I coincidentally watched the F1 race in which Michael Schumacher won his first race in Spa 1992. I was really excited when HHF, a guy from my hometown stepped into F1 a few years later in 1994 (and still somewhat later Nick Heidfeld, who is also from Mönchengladbach) and so I got to be an HHF fan instantly. However, a few years later - it must have been in 1998 - I even got the chance to pay the Frentzen families' home a short and surprising visit: That came about when I started attending college and got to know this guy who had grown up as an immediate neighbor of the Frentzens. One day this college friend gave a birthday party and as we were attending college together, I got invited. To my surprise, it turned out that the location of that party was actually the Frentzens' backyard, as apparently the two neighbouring families were really close with each other. So when I arrived, on my way to that backyard, I got the chance to walk down a hallway within the Frentzens' home. This hallway led past something that you could call a "showroom", basically a small room separated from the hallway by a large window pane. Within that room, there were lots of HHF's trophies on exhibition which he apparently had won throughout his career up to that point. To my absolute astonishment however, the chassis of an F1 car was also there for one to admire. My friend told me that it was just the chassis (no engine etc.). If the >20 years that have passed since have not completely messed with my memories, it was one of the Sauber's chassis. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one or from which year exactly, as that would certainly have been a nice info in retrospect. Besides that experience, the evening went on to become a nice birthday party :-) . EDIT: Just found a clip in which HHF shows the chassis that I mentioned above. He even says that Peter Sauber gave it to him as a gift after the season of 1994. th-cam.com/video/h3MQAzkbxhs/w-d-xo.html
I don't think Frentzen was the most unlikely F1 Champion. Actually, he achieved some good highlights during his time in F1 although not consistently enough. I'd say the most unlikely F1 Champion would be someone like Taki Inoue, Luca Badoer or Alex Yoong.
Great video! What's even more impressive about Frentzen's win at the French GP was the fact he won the race while driving with a fractured kneecap. He got the injury at the crash at the Canadian GP when his brake disc exploded. He wasn't able to extract himself from the car without help after the crash, so there was some concern if Frentzen would even be able to compete at the French GP for some time
and frentzen was other than michael .. always a funny and easy dude. when he was asked by a german reporter after the first win for jordan where he found the speed .. he coinincidently had a drink in his hand and said .. that he was super thirsty for his new sponsors drink and couldnt wait to drink it after the race! i found that so funny .. that ive instantly became a fan! great man and great charakter and sadly he NEVER got a real chance!
He should have won 🏆, should have, I mean it would have been nice.It would have been sweet especially after what happened at Williams. I heard that during his spelling at Williams he was not treated that well. Patrick Head would be rude to him and things like that. Besides Williams was going down hill after sacking Damond Hill. At Williams when he drove there who knows what kind of car parts he got 🙄
It sounded like his time at Williams was a real struggle - under pressure after just three races, and expected to match Villeneuve who was already well integrated and the clear team leader.
@@TheMobileChicane yeah I think the culture at Williams was different or nobody was happy with Hill getting sacked. Whi know most f1 team are more or less loke working in a corporation. And most us know how that feels right. I am sure working at Mercedes, Ferrari or any other big team sucks unless you are theirs favorite 😉
@@unclemick-synthsRalf was one of the most inconsistent drivers of all time, on his day he was the best in the sport, other times he was a maniac, there was no in-between
On Jordan's 98 problems, the car was below expectations and the engine was considerably behind the 97 Peugeot, Gary flew to Japan 4 times in order for Honda to do something about the problem, whilst he and his team went to find why the car was slower than expected and why the drivers did not like the car, after the 4th round of the season the team made some aero tests, they were surprised by the results of the test and went on to redesign the front end of the car. On Gary's last trip to Japan, an Honda engineer went to the dyno and came out with the exact figure Jordan claimed the mugen-honda had, the figure was 40 bhp down on Honda's estimate, over night Gary and the Honda staff went on planning changes to the exhaust, cooling and architecture with the new engine set for the Silverstone GP. At that time Gary felt the Jordan board did not support him enough, he told Jordan he was going to make sure the car was ready for Silverstone and then he was going to leave. At the British GP, Jordan scored their first point, the new engine was 20 bhp up on the previous and the drivers liked the car. On Monday morning he told Eddie he was leaving, Eddie insisted on Gary to stay but Gary had his mind set. Gary left for no job, at spa got an offer for Stewart GP for 99.
When all this happened I was a little boy, with nothing in mind but scarlet red and Michael Schumacher. But whenever I look back, it's Jordan GP I miss the most, they almost where the last hurrah of F1 as a place where dreams can come true. And although I still get this warm feeling when I watch Schumi at it's best, now that I'm older it's the Frentzens, Hills and Barrichellos, Steward and Jordan GP's I look back on with the most enjoyment. And Mika Häkkinen. Boy I hated him when I was a child, but have nothing but respect and admiration for him left. It's good to have a driver like Hamilton, Verstappen, Senna or Schumacher, but as we see now, without their Mikas and Prosts, what's the point watching? (There are still many reasons to watch, but I hope you get what I mean^^)
This is a great video, I totally agree with the conclusion.. 1999 was a great year, one which it looked like nobody wanted to win it. It was great seeing Frentzen's Jordan fighting McLaren and Ferrari.
3:00 I would love to see a „what if“ Video on how the F1 would have changed if Schumacher‘s car doesn’t break down in the race and wins (or lands on the podium) on debut.
Its sad that such a cool name isnt in the the champ books. The yellow Jordan actually was a good looking car. Unfortunately after 1999, Jordan became the smokin Jordan. Always ending a race up in smoke.
You do realise. When Frentzen joined Jordan it was already his 5 Season in F1? Jordan was clearly a stepdown for him. After driving the F1 winning car 97.
When you compare F1 now to what it was before 2000, it feels like comparing a big multinational company to a small store chain. There was a sence of "what if we push it just a bit further" mentality at that time. I don't know what really plays behind the scenes today, but I have a feeling that the bulletproof reliability of todays' cars is partly to blame on a more conservative posture. And what I miss in F1 today is the lack of risk. I think that is a time long gone to history, and I am glad I could have witnessed it. And HHF, he has been one of my favorites. And most of the drivers of that time rank higher than those of today. They felt a lot more highs and lows, and you could see that. They didn't need a Netflix series to make clear they were comfortable, were ready to fight or have given up hope. You saw it on track, and the few interviews that were done. I loved that, and I would give anything to relive that again!
So Jordan had a launch control in 1999? Wasn't that illegal in that time? I remember they claim the problem to be an electronic issue. Well, in a certain way, it was.
Driver aids were certainly banned, but I think Jordan and a number of others exploited a loophole around the legality of the launch control by having the manual disable. Of course, that's what came back to bite them.
@@TheMobileChicane If I remember correctly, it was because of all the teams finding loopholes that they announced at the end of 2000 that traction and launch control were coming back. The fact that there's been a standard ECU since 2008 has made it much easier to ban them again.
Had a lot of respect for Frentzen at the time and there was a time in late 99 when it did look like he had a decent title chance after winning Italy. He had a great year from memory. It’s easy to see why Williams went for him at the time they did, after Hill made a pigs ear of the 95 season.
Wow I feel really sorry for Frentzen. I feel he drove the best of all the drivers in 1999 and deserved the championship the most, but the bad luck at the end of the season ruined his chances.
Senna crashed into Brundle. No one talks about it. Schumacher crashed into Hakkinen in f3, everyone takes that as argument him being a dirty driver since beginning.
Frentzen 99 is arguably one of the greatest stories in F1 history. The Jordan was NEVER the fastest car overall at any point in 1999, yet he was 10 points off the championship lead and took pole for that race with 3 to go. Pretty incredible
He did exactly what we praise Alonso for at higher level. Imagine if he was in Mclaren instead of David Coulthard..but would the Mclaren environment suit him?
@@mattroyce I have no doubt he would've won (had he and McLaren got along fine)
Don’t forget McLaren and Ferrari both had more reliability issues than Jordan. Jordan is often fast enough to capitalize their misfortune just like Stewart team has a couple of times. Albeit if their engines lasted long enough. Although it doesn’t take away from his performances in wet conditions like France, which was amongst the top drives like Malaysia 2012 and Monza 2008.
One of my favourite stats about Frentzen is in qualifying for the European Grand Prix at Jerez in 1997, he, Villeneuve and Schumacher all got the exact same time down to the thousandth of a second. Amazing to watch.
It's a great stat! Quite unreal to see.
I was there. It was also the race where most people - including myself - discovered that Frentzen spoke almost perfect Spanish because his mother is Spanish. Sadly it was also the race where Schumacher tried to knock Villeneuve off the track and had all his points taken away and Villeneuve was given the title. By the way it was also the race where everyone discovered that grid positions for drivers with equal times were decided by who drove the time first, second etc.
@@TheMobileChicane but I saw it!
@@probablygraham I was there as well. I can remember quite well the crowd’s (including me) reaction to having two identical times during qualifying. Then to have a third identical time, the crowd was wild with amazement. What an incredible occasion.
@Mike - it was strange to say the least. I've been to God knows how many grand prixs over the years and never seen anything like it. I remember 2 other things about Jerez too - firstly it was unbelievably hot, and secondly because the press were expecting Schumacher and Villeneuve to crash on the first corner of the race there were loads of cameramen stood in the gravel inside the circuit, not just behind the barriers and tyres.
As a huuuge Frentzen fan, this video was very emotional to me! Thanks for telling such a good story in such deep level of detail.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Ironically Jordan's ninth place finish in 2003 was partly EJ's fault. He suggested increasing the points past sixth place. If the 2002 points system been in place for 2003, Jordan would have finished 5th not 9th
That’s incredible. Did Jordan score any points in 2003 apart from the win lol
@@Duval-In-The-Wall Yes in Barcelona with Ralph Firman I think it was. One point for eighth place
Damn, that has never occured to me, even as a long time F1 and Jordan fan. Wtf
@@espenbaklid3178 FTW
Watching Hakkinen, Irvine and Frentzen fight for world title at 3 different teams was awesome
A little known fact about Heinz-Harald is that the family runs the best known undertakers in Mönchengladbach. Heinz-Harald drove one of the hearses as his private car 😁
That's a great fact!
I'm quite sure the family owns a creepy castle in the Sterian mtns., where they raise Yetti's.
I liked HHF from the start (C2) and was living and dying that season with him, the brake failure really hurt his late season momentum, big hit unt bad timing.
I also wanted Alessandro Nannini to eat Mansel, Senna, Schuf and Prost (Chin Chin). He was accessing a 2yr contract offer from Ferrari 17 months before, chopper down. As was Kubica another spectacular run as the Mcrae "lets rally" chant died out slowly. Zanardi an immaculate human spirit. Yet Frentzen lives (in a haunted castle?).
The one offs Alesi - Canada. Panis - Monaco, Maldonado - Spain, Herbert (2-3?) 1st Eiffel Mtn
1 WDC; Rosberg 1981, Rosberg 2016, Damon 1996, Jacques 1997, Kimi 2007, Jenson 2009
More underdog victories please. GoGoGo; Carlos, Lando, Oscar, Kmag, Horehey - George etc
Frenzten is one of the most underrated drivers unfortunately. In his youth, he beat Schumacher in Group C. Apparently Senna already told Williams to sign him for 1995, shortly before his death. Unfortunately for Frentzen, that didn’t happen until 1997. Frentzen’s reputation was tarnished by this 1997 season. But as far as I remember, he wasn’t really any slower than Villeneuve. He had several DNFs while comfortably leading races. At some point, Williams then rightly focused everything on Villeneuve. But when judging History, everybody only looks at the scoreboard.
1999 showed how good he was. Yes, he profited from the mistakes of McLaren and Ferrari. But the way he put his inferior car into a position where he could profit is already amazing. The gap between himself and Damon Hill was enormous. And while Hill was no longer the most motivated driver, he was a World Champion and did sit in the same car. It was constantly one little yellow car having to fight it out against two McLarens and two Ferraris, the big guys at the time with a massive budget and people like Brawn and Newey.
I always thought the opposite. I thought he was always overrated, there was always talk about when he was faster than Schumacher in lower series, but I think he found himself in good cars with average team mates, Jordan were able to punch above their weight on certain days in certain conditions running Bridgestones. But he never consistently shamed anyone he drove against in the same team.
He was undoubtedly quick. Felt the same about Jean Alesi.
Exactly.
I was rooting for HHF in '99, but I think he was outlcassed by Jacques in '97 in qualifying (Jacques had 10 poles iirc?). Sadly, I don't remember their qualifying head to head for '97 and '98.
... and should replace Senna after his death. Frentzen was asked after the Monaco GP, but he declined because he didn't want to abandon the Sauber team after Wendlinger had a serious accident in Monaco. Frentzen should have been more selfish back then!
Nice video. Just one remark. HHF was way better than Herbert in Sauber in 1996. So the comment on Heinz failing to catch the pace of Herbert makes no sense.
When I watched the 2008 F1 season, Kubica was basicaly in the same postion as Frentzen in 1999. I have no doubt Kubica would have won the tittle in 2008 only if BMW evolved their car after Canada. The performances of both Massa and Hamilton that year were most of the time poor, just like Hakkinen and Irvine in 1999.
Almost certainly. The amount of mistakes Hamilton and Massa made, and the consistency and speed of Kubica would've surely taken him to that title. He'd have richly deserved it too.
they put all of their effort into the 2009 car which ended up being shit....really added insult to injury
I recall that BMW stated that they put the effort into the next year's car rather than go for the championship.
I wouldn't say Hamilton's performances were poor in 2008, as he had a couple of great races. He only was very inconsistent for some reason. Unlike 2008, McLaren had the fastest car by quite some margin in 1999. I think Irvine had a great season by his standards, even though he clearly lacked some pace compared to Schumacher (but who didn't at the time?), though Frentzen's consistence impressed me most at the time.
@@mrdraw2087 You're right. Hamilton was up and down.
Ragged in Japan, pit lane crash into Raikkonen in Canada, crashed into the back of Alonso in Bahrain. In the win that wasn't in Belgium, he half spun, left the track about 4 times, plus that dodgy overtake. France to add to the poor performances and another failed overtake and penalty. Italy was hit and miss.
On the other side, he was brilliant compared to the field in Germany, which despite a team error, he still won. China was another fine win that put him closer to the title, while Silverstone was an absolutely outstanding performance that his rivals couldn't match.
HHF is my favorite driver ever, I still can't bear to watch his title hopes slip away. It's great to see such a wonderful look at him here! His 1999 season is the most "into" formula 1 I've ever been.
One thing that really hurt Frentzen's chances of winning the championship was that Jordan was basically a one man team. David Coulthard and all the Ferrari drivers including Mika Salo were able to take away points from other contenders. Damon Hill however was only going through the motions at this point of his career and tried to get to the end of the season without getting harmed. He retired healthy cars on several occasions. I think he even wanted to retire on the spot after the british grand prix but continued for business reasons. With a motivated Damon Hill or another driver who would try to get the most out of a winning car Frentzen wouldn't have to do everything by himself and rely on McLaren and Ferrari constantly messing up.
Very good point. And yes, Hill was meant to retire at the British Grand Prix, but changed his mind after the race and carried on. His struggles didn't help, but there weren't many other options. Jos Verstappen and Shinji Nakano both tested the Jordan as options to replace Hill, and I don't think either went much faster than him.
@@TheMobileChicane they were significantly slower than Hill which shows how Hill when on it was fast.
@@tippersimracing6070 This is correct. Nakano was Jordan's official test driver in 1999, and he wasn't well rated, so they didn't think he'd be good enough to replace Hill. They brought in Verstappen, then a free agent, to test with Nakano at Silverstone after Hill's disappointing French GP, thinking he'd probably be good enough. To the team's disappointment, Verstappen only went a tenth or so faster than Nakano. Hill comes in a few days later and smashes them both by over a second.
@@MasterofSpiders Hill just lacked the motivation and if he put in what he did at say Arrows in 1997, he could of done far better. Jos Verstappen was not really anything special (unlike Max) and he seemed to not have that special spark. And in the test being over a second slower than Hill and not much faster than Nakano baring in mind he was testing the Honda RA99 at the time which had a similar engine to the Mugen Honda, isn't a good look.
@@tippersimracing6070 Hill generally liked a smooth, predicable car and struggled to get that from the 199 for whatever reason. Being yeeted on the first lap after good starts in the first two races of the season (he actually outqualified in Frentzen in Brazil, albeit they were down in 7th & 8th) probably didn't help his motivation and confidence.
Says a lot that his four points scoring results in 1999 were his home Grand Prix, and then Imola, Spa & the Hungaroring. 3 places where he nearly always had good results and would've likely been more confident at.
The GOLDEN era! The looks, the sounds, the mix of technology/driver, just amazing.... I wish we could get these days back!
Jordan fan from Ireland here. Eddie and the team are responsible for my enduring love of F1, even if it's not a patch on what it was. So much better in the 90s...
Its a real shame there isn't more irish influence in motorsport especially with the massive thirst for racing within Ireland
One thing I really admire about Frentzen wasn't to do with his exploits for Jordan but in 2001 just after he had been sacked before the German GP, just so he could keep racing he offered to race the rest of the season for cash strapped Prost for free, as they couldn't afford to pay him his worth. Really just loved racing, really old school driver. I've watched this video countless times, your content is fantastic. Please consider making a Patreon, would love to support your hard work!
It was a wonderful gesture from the man. And thank you! I'm looking into Patreon and would love to get it set up this year. I'll post here and on social media channels when things are more set up!
@@TheMobileChicane I will be sure to keep my eyes peeled my friend :)
Don't change what you're doing, once the mysterious yt algorithm smiles upon this channel, you'll get the views you deserve!
He did well for Prost as well, qualified 4th in Spa which was crazy
@@Duval-In-The-Wall highly recommend his beyond the grid podcast! He goes into detail on how the team was, and how he was able to input & develop the car, though sadly the team was beyond saving financially at that point. His technical insights on the podcast are fantastic. He is really like his own race engineer, incredible depth of knowledge.
The second greatest "should have been champion" after Massa. Deserving it doesn't always mean you get it.
Massa is a great shout. Between 2007-2009 he was fantastic.
Montoya is who i"d consider the prime "should have been"
had his engine not failed from a dominant lead in Austria 2003 he would have been
@@AnarchistMetalhead he had 2 engines failure that season both times was when he was leading comfortably
Plus the controversial penalty at USA
2003 is defo the Championship that got away from JPM and also Kimi as well. Funnily enough MSC won it thanks to the push out of the gravel trap he got at the European GP completely legal at the time of course but still interesting
It was so tough for Frentzen, qualifying on pole for the European GP late into the season then having to retire :(
HHF is my favorite F1 driver of all time that I've seen race in person, simply the way he was able to always extract a little bit more out of every single machine he drove, best example is his 4th place in qualifying in Spa 2001 in that shitbox of a Prost, of course it was partly thanks to the tricky conditions, but still, nailing that kind of lap in that kind of car was class. It really is a shame that this kind of driver always seems to have a permanent contract for bad luck, I'm talking the likes of Jean Alesi, Robert Kubica or Kamui Kobayashi, who knows just how much all these men could have achieved if destiny had been a little bit more gentle on them...
All very good drivers beaten by the truly great ones.
Still remember the moment Hakkinen cries under the tree at Monza 99. And the moment in 21:02 where frentzen loses his brake was happening in front of me, as it was my first GP I ever attending
A lot of people considered him the faster driverrof the Williams pairing Frentzen-Villneuve in 1997 I think Frentzen got the raw speed,but can easily crack down under pressure and made a lot of decisions that were bad from a Business Perspektive:
German Tv Host and close Friend of Frentzen Kai Ebel revealed that one of the reasons Villneuve dominated Frentzen in 1997 was because of the psychological pressure he put om him.Villneuve told Ebel this many years later in a Interview.
Frentzen also refused to join Williams in 1994 as a replacement for the deceased Senna due to his loyality to Sauber. He said : "This Team brought me into Formula 1 and Wendliger is seriously Injured,so this Team needs me more".
Source ( in German,Kai Ebel is relatively well known Germany.for his Role as on-track-reporter together with Nicki Lauda on German Television for most of the Races during the 90s) : th-cam.com/video/8qdZPkcvPig/w-d-xo.html
Great stuff, I didn't know this. Thanks!
@@TheMobileChicane you're welcome. i can provide translations of his podcasts if necessary .( was kinda drunk tired when i wrote the last comment,which explains this rough translation) And great content with extremly high production Value so far.from you. Your channel is a Hidden Gem ! Keep it up!
@@krorook9221 Thanks so much! That would be great to see. Cheers for all the support.
@Kro Rook - it's interesting to hear that Kai Ebel and Heinz-Harald were friends. They're very different characters. I'll never forget an interview on the grid when Kai Ebel asked him what his tactics for the race would be and he put on a poker face, lowered his voice and said "I've got a secret plan. I'm going to try and make sure that all the drivers behind me don't get past, and overtake all the drivers in front of me that I can". 😁
That must sting knowing Sauber sacked him in 2003 unduly. No good karma there sadly...
I can imagine younger F1 fans may or may have not heard of HHF. For those who don't know, Frentzen wasn't a complete nobody. He had 3 career wins, 2 with a mid-pack Jordan, and he used to date Corinna Betsch; the future wife of Michael Schumacher.
Not bad at all.
Jordan and Williams were the last good independant teams
Another brilliant video from you. Your channel was one of the best recommendations TH-cam gave to me in the last 12 months. Wish you much success.
Thank you so much! Very kind of you to say so.
The 1999 European GP was definitely a story of "what ifs". Had Frentzen won, he would've been properly in the title fight. Coulthard also a chance to close the 12-point gap to his team mate and Irvine - only to retire. And eventually only Häkkinen scored points (which proved vital in the end).
Well, you can't compare Irvine to Hamilton or Verstappen haha.
If it was a 3 way battle, it would be with bottas (in the Merc) Verstappen and Gasly, because Hamilton got injured
Comparing Irvine to Bottas is still pretty generous ;)
@@TheMobileChicaneWhich way?
I am a Huge Frentzen fan and always rated him as a driver. I was there at Nurburgring in 99 when he put it on pole. I was waving the Frenten Flag (literally) after qualifying and got interviewed by German Radio (they thought I was a German fan, much to their surprise they found out I was travelling from Australia there to support Frentzen). He has gone very quiet as of late, I don’t think he is racing I would love to know what he is doing now and can you still meet him, get his autograph. Thanks for putting this together as I always wondered why both his and Hill’s cars failed that day, we originally thought it was an electrical failure much to my surprise it was a setting for a quick getaway from the start or pits. Any more details on the technology behind this?
As a Ferrari Fan that saw Irvine lose the title in '99, I still regard it as my favourite season, maybe because it was my first full one. Words of appreciation go to Jordan, I always had a soft spot for them. Sadly they are a team of a bygone era, a very different F1 than that of today.
I’ve done the maths with 2010 onwards points frentzen would of won the championship by 12 points and hakkinen would of finished 3rd and not even be in championship fight in Japan
I did toy with the idea of seeing how implementing the top 8 and top 10 point scoring systems would change it, but when I punched the numbers in, I had Irvine coming out on top each time. Maybe I missed something! Or is that with the theoretical perfect season numbers?
@@TheMobileChicane I did it with adding the results for the DNFs frentzen had a pushing the finishes of the original results and it’s came up with
1 frentzen. 247 champion
2 Irvine. 233
3 Häkkinen. 213
*would have
I still cannot believe such good content & narration has garnered less than 500 subscribers. Please continue your good work and I wish you much more success and views.
P.S. If I had to make a suggestion, I'd prefer your wonderful videos to be between 15-20 mins run time.
Thank you Aaditya!
@@TheMobileChicane 30 40 are ok for me! Hey you have patreon?
@@Sirikazy not yet, perhaps in the future.
I'm Irish and love Jordan but I went through their 13 seasons with a fine tooth comb last year and they didn't even finish 50% of races! That means they didn't finish every second race. If they had fixed this major flaw they could have really kicked ass.
I'm so happy this video has been made about Jordan. As an Irish person, this was a fantastic year of F1 and was something of a golden period of F1 in general. Ireland had both Eddie Irvine and the Jordan GP team challenging for the drivers championship. Alas, it wasn't to be in either case. You're absolutely right about the reliability of the 2000 and 2001 Jordans too. They were probably the third fastest cars for each of those seasons too, but poor reliability and errors from both Trulli and Frentzen ruined their seasons. In my opinion, the EJ11 has got to be one of the most stunning and beautiful F1 cars of all time.
Wonderfully put. The part about the demise of the Little Guy in f1 made me sad, and I'd never seen a lot of the earlier 90s footage. Thanks for the review, quality and insight on par with BBC
Thank you Grahame!
I would throw Eddie Irvine into this conversation because if todays points system was used, he is the 1999 World Champin, not Mika Hakkinen . That's how close he came
The current system punishes DNFs more harshly, and Hakkinen had so many
I like him because like Nick Hidfeld, he is from my little not internationally known hometown of Mönchengladbach.
This is a great video, I have been re-watching the 1998 and 1999 seasons, they were great. Let alone the fact Murray Walker was commentating and providing the orchestra to great racing.
Did you warch them? I am looking for 1985 - 2004 to rewatch
Yes, mostly, I think are few are missing if I remember correctly but it was 4 months ago so I can't remember that well. Perhaps I should go back and have another watch. 94-99 are probably my favourite seasons along with 2009 and 2011.@@ChaufMT
Coming back to this video considering we may be in for a 99’ esque season with Alonso for AMR
In 99 there was no Max... Schumi missed many races with a broken leg.
The final part of this video where the 1999 season was reimagined for Frentzen and Jordan had the 'perfect season' inspired me to reimagine the 1995 season. In real life, Jean Alesi lost a lot of points and another two or three wins due to bad luck. In the alternate version (A lot of results were altered), he beats Schumacher to the championship by two points, albeit in controversial circumstances after a collision in Adelaide causes both terminal damage, ironic for Schumacher after the 1994 Adelaide incident with Hill!
Jean Alesi - now there's a man who deserved so much more from F1 than he got!
@@TheMobileChicane I couldn't believe when I found out years ago that he only won one grand prix! When I was a kid it seemed like he was near the front every week, I'd just assumed he'd won a fair handful
another fun fact! frentzen was in a relationship with schumachers wife corrina before she dated michael! :) i think they both worked at the auto reparo shop that i think corinas father owned!
Massive thanks for an excellent video. I started watching in '94 and after '95 Canada decided Jordan was my favorite. '99 was the highlight of that, after seeing Jordan gradually becoming better every year. Frentzen was my brother's favorite driver, so to see him take Jordan to an interstellar level was especially mesmerizing. And I had just made an elaborate comment on the F1 subreddit about this season 2 days before this gets recommended. Also Damon was someone my friends and I had always despised for some weird juvenile reasons, and to see him replace my darling Fisico to team up with bratty Ralf really was something else. Jordan's first win ánd 1-2 redeemed both of them of course, although I still don't really care for them much.
Like I said in the reddit comment Jordan was truely the last underdog private constructor able to push to extraordinary heights, even if the '99 season was one of the craziest unexpected seasons. Williams would be affiliated with BMW and Brawn was really just Honda. All my interest vanished in the next years, with doing other stuff and Ferrari dominance making it boring. Fisico's win was the perfect end to that era for me. To have him celebrate his first with his return to the team that gave him the means for his first success and long career was storybook-like. As was with Rubinho who was my first favorite, it was great to seem them continue to do well and helped get multiple constructor's championships. Eddie truely had an eye for talent, I loved how he later admitted in a podcast wiht Hill that he didn't even want Damon driving for him. Such a great refreshing character Jordan was and still is. I still don't understand why I picked them, it still seems random, but I'm glad it paid off and have the biggest respect for his achievements.
Love this video, always was a fan of him as he actually answered one fan letter my younger brother wrote back in the early 00s when we were kids. He definately had some bad luck in his later years but always was a formidable driver
Glad you enjoyed it! That’s really cool to hear that he wrote back, not many would do that.
Watching who I'm assuming is a young Mattia Binotto learn how to bungle strategy at Ferrari is priceless at 18:02.
I think you might be right! Good to know things haven't changed in over 20 years.
1999, what a year it was to be a Jordan fan. Great memories, and thanks for the video. I always felt HHF was a little underrated.
Thanks for watching!
His win with broken ribs was a brilliant one, He was a real talent and sadly a bit of a forgotten one.
Honestly 99 Frentzen should never be be forgotten. Minnows like Jordan competing with works Ferrari and McLaren for a world title is nothing short of incredible
That’s like Caterham one day fighting for the championship, they were so financially outgunned it was untrue
Great content. I swear, when I saw 1.9 subs, I figured that number was in the millions, not thousands. The Schumacher/Silverstone shunt wasn’t a warm up lap. It was a racing lap that had gotten red flagged. Ferrari and Michael didn’t know about the red flag, which would make any position changes moot anyways. Rough way to get injured really.
Thanks Blake!
I remember when Michael Schumacher, Karl Wendlinger and Heinz- Harald drove the group C mercedes. Michael said that Heinz-Harald was faster than him. Another story of what if?
I don't think so. Remember they were the junior team. The top car was that of Baldi and Schlesser, and they received most of Mercedes (and Sauber) attention.
Great video. 99 was a mega season and HHF was my star of the year
Thank you Stuart!
Great video and some great memories growing up and watching in the 90s. It was genuinely unpredictable. It's a shame that younger people have grown up watching the snoozefest that is Mercedes domination of the sport. The cars sound terrible, are too bloated and you need to wait years for an unpredictable result.
If you grew up looking in the 90s, then you missed the 70s and 80s. Those years were truly unpredictable. In the 90s, F1 was already more gentrified with two teams fighting and the rest accompanying or looking askance, although good races could still be seen.
@@fedecasares You seem to be forgetting in the 70s and early 80s, as long as they didn't blow up the Lotus was basically guaranteed to win. Rose colored glasses get used across every era of F1, but there really hasn't been all that many times in F1 where it wasn't dominated by 1 or 2 teams, the longest period being when everyone was using the Codsworths. When F1 started it was basically all Ferrari and Mercedes. Then you had the almost spec era where F1 was slower than sport cars, but many teams were competitive. After that you had Lotus mostly dominating, with some Ferrari, and Mclaren outliers. Then the Cosworth era, which was extremely competitive for a while. Then the Turbo Era that Mclaren and Williams dominated. Then the mid 90s came along and it was almost all Ferrari and the Michael with some notable, but largely irrelevant, exceptions like Mika, Damon, Kimi and Jean. Then we had the Red Bull's domination, into Mercedes being dominate, and now we have a decently level grid, for arguably the 4th time ever in F1 history, but it's to early to say, next season will be the earliest we can really tell.
Just one thing for the “what if perfect season was carried out by both Jordan and Frentzen” question: Hakkinen having only 65 points instead of 66 before Suzuka, he could’ve been defeated by Irvine with a second place, so Schumacher would very much likely to give up second for Eddie, this way Eddie could have 76 points to Mika’s and HHF’s 75.
Despite all this, based on driver and team operating performance, Mika didn’t deserve the 99 title, and neither would Eddie. Only three champion performance that year came from HHF and Jordan. Mika was way better in 2000 when he was defeated by Schumacher and even in 98 when he fully deserved the title.
If we could count a perfect season for both I would add a scenario if Jordan made a better pitstop or a strategy call on Silverstone HHF will receive 3rd which will give 1 more point and could have equal as Irvine, but still lose due to wins count.
But for a whole season the real ;what if' would be if Frentzen won Nurbugring and kept his momentum in Sepang and Suzuka. By my predictions in Malaysia it will be a close 3 way battle between Mika, Scumi and HHF for 2nd (keeping that he had the second fastest lap in spare car what would be if he hadn't brake issue with primary car) which will give a 4th place at worst (+2 points). In Japan it will be another close battle between Scumi and HHF (keeping in mind how off the pace Irvine was in that race) which will give 78 points to Irvine 76 and 75 for Mika.
Another interesting thing to check 'what if' Jordan was reliable in 2000 due to how many points were thrown by reliability while having at times a pace to rival top teams.
Just watched this on the day Russel took pole in a dog of a Mercedes at Hungary '22
Mate, I watched this season live and Frentzen could've absolutely been champion had things fallen his way. If I remember correctly Panis was looking on for the championship fight a year or two earlier until he broke his leg/legs in Canada. In either of those seasons, we could've had an underdog fairytale story.
I always find it interesting Hill beat Villeneuve in 1996, Villeneuve beat Frentzen in 1997, yet Frentzen beat Hill in 1998. All as teammates.
Panis absolutely could’ve! I covered this in my video about Prost Grand Prix. If you assume Panis kept the same form all year, he would’ve been championship runner-up that year!
When you hear his name without knowing anything about F1 you know he is or was an F1 driver.
I became a fan of his for life when I was a little kid purely because his name sounded cool on the broadcasts
In the late 90's we all knew that Michael Schumacher was the best driver, even if a lot of us didn't want to admit it....but we were treated to 4 straight years of bad luck for The Michael. 1999 was one of the most exciting since all three contenders were worth cheering for (1997 was my favourite, but I'm Canadian and biased)....the next 5 years made up for all the bad luck, but they were as exciting as Hamilton winning the championship on the 3rd lap of the first race.....
Was a big Hakkinnen fan back then, since Ferrari and Schumacher seemed to be far ahead, with all the sponsor money in the world to help them.
But was also only 13-15 years old then, so didn't understand the politics in F1..
Before that I was with Senna.
Who is the greatest, in the modern exotic materials F1 cars
Need to do a video about Trulli he is fast
Was a good go kart champion too
Trulli would be a great one to do, I’ve got fond memories of his Monaco win, even as a Button fan.
If championships were based on qualifying Jarno Trulli would have been a championship contender
" We're used to seeing Hamilton wrap up the title by lap 3 of the first race of the season." Love it, don't just exaggerate, go for broke.
Typical British commentary on an Irish Team.
IGNORE ITS IRISH.
Every other team and where they are from mentioned... of course.
There really is something wrong in your brains lads. It's like built in hate. And the Irish of course carry on being better at everything.
Jordan was often extremely fast, but had atrocious reliability and luck. So, it’s weird for me that many who both weren’t and were around at the time remember them as a kind of hapless back marker. They were, not surprisingly, a lot like the pink Force India / Racing Point (which is the Jordan team).
I might be totally wrong but my impression of Sam Michael’s time in F1 is largely one of incompetence. I never understood why we he stayed so long at Williams. Again, I might be wrong so I’m open to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
Little known facts: HHF used to be Corinna Schumacher's boyfriend before she left him for the Michael. HHF's mother is Spanish, but she left the family when he was young. But there's no doubt: HHF was utterly stunning in 1999. He was much, much better than Mika & Eddie like how Kubica was easily better than Lewis and Felipe
There have been many cases of unfulfilled potential in F1
launch control in 1999? That's rather interesting to know, as so far I had only heard traction control was allowed following the 2001 French (?) Grand Prix given there was no way to control it.
1999 thrilling season, beautiful cars, missing it
Also chances are Eddie Jordan Racing could have challenged Roberto Moreno and Bromley for the 1988 F3000 title with Herbert had it not been for his accident at Brands Hatch. Also, there was that time Frentzen flipped off Mark Blundell at the Australian GP of 1995 (with Murray Walker saying it wasn't very polite).
The Jordan in 99 wasn't like Alpha tauri last year, but like Mercedes 2022. Not in the same league of the 2 main teams, but a comfortable 3rd best car, very reliable and ready to capitalize on the others mistake
Very reliable? Are you sure?
France 1999 is my single favourite race of all time. For me it’s better than Canada 2011, Brazil 2012 - anything.
It's definitely up there for me - Canada 2011 just pips it for me, but only because I was a huge Button fan growing up!
Same! "MAG-nificent!"
Watching 5 drivers and 4 different teams legitimately fight for the win the entire race is quite something
I have a Jordan Flag from 1991 and I'm Wondering if its worth anything because I can't find another one anywhere online its Green not yellow like every Jordan flag I find. Im from Ireland and Jordan was an Irish team back then .
1:00 I would say more like Lando in McLaren because the 99 Jordan was the 3rd best car
I agree, but I assume his analogy was more so he could make a call back to it at 28:00 when he talked about Gasly winning against the odds
I was thinking more a race-winning driver who'd been promoted and dumped from a championship winning team, finding refuge at a midfield-tier team who'd had minor success but weren't obvious championship challengers!
Oh the memories! Thanks for this awesome video.
Maybe some of you might find my following little story interesting:
I'm from Mönchengladbach, hometown of Frentzen, I'm about 9 years younger than him. I really got into watching F1 when I coincidentally watched the F1 race in which Michael Schumacher won his first race in Spa 1992.
I was really excited when HHF, a guy from my hometown stepped into F1 a few years later in 1994 (and still somewhat later Nick Heidfeld, who is also from Mönchengladbach) and so I got to be an HHF fan instantly.
However, a few years later - it must have been in 1998 - I even got the chance to pay the Frentzen families' home a short and surprising visit:
That came about when I started attending college and got to know this guy who had grown up as an immediate neighbor of the Frentzens. One day this college friend gave a birthday party and as we were attending college together, I got invited.
To my surprise, it turned out that the location of that party was actually the Frentzens' backyard, as apparently the two neighbouring families were really close with each other. So when I arrived, on my way to that backyard, I got the chance to walk down a hallway within the Frentzens' home. This hallway led past something that you could call a "showroom", basically a small room separated from the hallway by a large window pane.
Within that room, there were lots of HHF's trophies on exhibition which he apparently had won throughout his career up to that point. To my absolute astonishment however, the chassis of an F1 car was also there for one to admire. My friend told me that it was just the chassis (no engine etc.). If the >20 years that have passed since have not completely messed with my memories, it was one of the Sauber's chassis. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one or from which year exactly, as that would certainly have been a nice info in retrospect.
Besides that experience, the evening went on to become a nice birthday party :-) .
EDIT: Just found a clip in which HHF shows the chassis that I mentioned above. He even says that Peter Sauber gave it to him as a gift after the season of 1994. th-cam.com/video/h3MQAzkbxhs/w-d-xo.html
This is a fantastic story! Thank you for sharing.
I was rooting for HHF in that '99 season, it was a great story!
I don't think Frentzen was the most unlikely F1 Champion. Actually, he achieved some good highlights during his time in F1 although not consistently enough. I'd say the most unlikely F1 Champion would be someone like Taki Inoue, Luca Badoer or Alex Yoong.
Jordan had some of the best liveries specially with the nose art one with the shark, snake and bee. so sad they folded
The snake decals on the nose are one of the more iconic liveries for me. But you can’t go wrong with yellow and black!
@@TheMobileChicane i love the shark ones. Reminds me of a curtiss p40 aircraft poster i used to have as a kid
"The steering wheel: yeeted". 🤣🤣 Brilliant.
I got his autograph in Montreal in 1999.
Great video! What's even more impressive about Frentzen's win at the French GP was the fact he won the race while driving with a fractured kneecap. He got the injury at the crash at the Canadian GP when his brake disc exploded. He wasn't able to extract himself from the car without help after the crash, so there was some concern if Frentzen would even be able to compete at the French GP for some time
I learnt about that a few weeks after making this video! Very impressive.
Wasn't a F1 champion ?
Why use that title ?
This „Buzzin Hornets“ ad 😂
and frentzen was other than michael .. always a funny and easy dude. when he was asked by a german reporter after the first win for jordan where he found the speed .. he coinincidently had a drink in his hand and said .. that he was super thirsty for his new sponsors drink and couldnt wait to drink it after the race! i found that so funny .. that ive instantly became a fan!
great man and great charakter and sadly he NEVER got a real chance!
99 had such great characters, the likes of Hakkinen, Coulthard, Irvine, Frentzen, Alesi, Herbert, etc.
Rumor has it Williams offered HHF the drive after Senna’s death, and he knocked it back
I believe I've heard this too, I know Williams were interested in HHF a long time before 1997.
Came straight here after the BMW Sauber video and again, insane quality of content.
Frentzen was the Gasly before Gasly?
He should have won 🏆, should have, I mean it would have been nice.It would have been sweet especially after what happened at Williams. I heard that during his spelling at Williams he was not treated that well. Patrick Head would be rude to him and things like that. Besides Williams was going down hill after sacking Damond Hill. At Williams when he drove there who knows what kind of car parts he got 🙄
It sounded like his time at Williams was a real struggle - under pressure after just three races, and expected to match Villeneuve who was already well integrated and the clear team leader.
@@TheMobileChicane yeah I think the culture at Williams was different or nobody was happy with Hill getting sacked. Whi know most f1 team are more or less loke working in a corporation. And most us know how that feels right. I am sure working at Mercedes, Ferrari or any other big team sucks unless you are theirs favorite 😉
Michael Schumacher - Minor Success 🤣
Ralph didn't just announce that he was leaving, his brother Michael actually confronted Eddie Jordan about the team orders after the race.
Ironic considering the amount of times team orders went in Michael's favour! However wreck-it Ralf needed all the help he could get.
There already rumors before Spa that Ralf would leave Jordan to Williams next season
@@unclemick-synthsRalf was one of the most inconsistent drivers of all time, on his day he was the best in the sport, other times he was a maniac, there was no in-between
On Jordan's 98 problems, the car was below expectations and the engine was considerably behind the 97 Peugeot, Gary flew to Japan 4 times in order for Honda to do something about the problem, whilst he and his team went to find why the car was slower than expected and why the drivers did not like the car, after the 4th round of the season the team made some aero tests, they were surprised by the results of the test and went on to redesign the front end of the car. On Gary's last trip to Japan, an Honda engineer went to the dyno and came out with the exact figure Jordan claimed the mugen-honda had, the figure was 40 bhp down on Honda's estimate, over night Gary and the Honda staff went on planning changes to the exhaust, cooling and architecture with the new engine set for the Silverstone GP. At that time Gary felt the Jordan board did not support him enough, he told Jordan he was going to make sure the car was ready for Silverstone and then he was going to leave. At the British GP, Jordan scored their first point, the new engine was 20 bhp up on the previous and the drivers liked the car. On Monday morning he told Eddie he was leaving, Eddie insisted on Gary to stay but Gary had his mind set. Gary left for no job, at spa got an offer for Stewart GP for 99.
"Hakkinen's mistake and Irvine's lack of pace" - Ouch
Great Video on a driver very few talk about. Thanks from a HHFrentzen fan.
Glad you enjoyed it Billy!
Great driver. Shame he never won an F1 championship.
So so close that year.
When all this happened I was a little boy, with nothing in mind but scarlet red and Michael Schumacher. But whenever I look back, it's Jordan GP I miss the most, they almost where the last hurrah of F1 as a place where dreams can come true. And although I still get this warm feeling when I watch Schumi at it's best, now that I'm older it's the Frentzens, Hills and Barrichellos, Steward and Jordan GP's I look back on with the most enjoyment. And Mika Häkkinen. Boy I hated him when I was a child, but have nothing but respect and admiration for him left. It's good to have a driver like Hamilton, Verstappen, Senna or Schumacher, but as we see now, without their Mikas and Prosts, what's the point watching? (There are still many reasons to watch, but I hope you get what I mean^^)
This is a great video, I totally agree with the conclusion.. 1999 was a great year, one which it looked like nobody wanted to win it. It was great seeing Frentzen's Jordan fighting McLaren and Ferrari.
Eddie is the greatest!
3:00 I would love to see a „what if“ Video on how the F1 would have changed if Schumacher‘s car doesn’t break down in the race and wins (or lands on the podium) on debut.
I remember that season very vividly. To me the most beautiful car liveries ever.
That '99 Arrows in particular! I loved the Repsol covered Arrows.
@@TheMobileChicane yes! that was a really elegant.
Its sad that such a cool name isnt in the the champ books. The yellow Jordan actually was a good looking car. Unfortunately after 1999, Jordan became the smokin Jordan. Always ending a race up in smoke.
You do realise. When Frentzen joined Jordan it was already his 5 Season in F1? Jordan was clearly a stepdown for him. After driving the F1 winning car 97.
When you compare F1 now to what it was before 2000, it feels like comparing a big multinational company to a small store chain. There was a sence of "what if we push it just a bit further" mentality at that time. I don't know what really plays behind the scenes today, but I have a feeling that the bulletproof reliability of todays' cars is partly to blame on a more conservative posture. And what I miss in F1 today is the lack of risk. I think that is a time long gone to history, and I am glad I could have witnessed it.
And HHF, he has been one of my favorites. And most of the drivers of that time rank higher than those of today. They felt a lot more highs and lows, and you could see that. They didn't need a Netflix series to make clear they were comfortable, were ready to fight or have given up hope. You saw it on track, and the few interviews that were done. I loved that, and I would give anything to relive that again!
I remember just loving the way Murray Walker said his name excitedly.
So Jordan had a launch control in 1999? Wasn't that illegal in that time? I remember they claim the problem to be an electronic issue. Well, in a certain way, it was.
Driver aids were certainly banned, but I think Jordan and a number of others exploited a loophole around the legality of the launch control by having the manual disable. Of course, that's what came back to bite them.
@@TheMobileChicane If I remember correctly, it was because of all the teams finding loopholes that they announced at the end of 2000 that traction and launch control were coming back. The fact that there's been a standard ECU since 2008 has made it much easier to ban them again.
@@TheMobileChicane Benetton were very creative at sneaking in bits of code.
Wirh 1 pt less for Mika, Mika, Michael would probably have let Eddie through at Sizuka.
Had a lot of respect for Frentzen at the time and there was a time in late 99 when it did look like he had a decent title chance after winning Italy. He had a great year from memory. It’s easy to see why Williams went for him at the time they did, after Hill made a pigs ear of the 95 season.
Wow I feel really sorry for Frentzen. I feel he drove the best of all the drivers in 1999 and deserved the championship the most, but the bad luck at the end of the season ruined his chances.
I think in the hypothetical scenario; Eddie Irvine would have pushed aside in Suzuka and let Frenzen past!
Senna crashed into Brundle. No one talks about it. Schumacher crashed into Hakkinen in f3, everyone takes that as argument him being a dirty driver since beginning.