“Even in that in that period, there were fewer and fewer genuine owner-team principals [rather than employees of a larger companies].

“And Peter, who with the greatest respect is a lovely man, makes a cuckoo clock look very exciting!”

Watson first came into Eddie Jordan’s orbit at Silverstone’s greasy spoon café when taking a break from giving driver coaching in the late ‘80s. The former would listen, with a slightly circumspect ear, to the latter’s plans for a grand prix team – and would eventually become the man chosen to give the first run out to Jordan Grand Prix’s very first car, the 191 (at first called the 911).

As it turned out, the Ulsterman was making a (slight) habit of shaking down grand prix machines for Jordan.

In 1980 the future team boss’s exploits in F3 for Marlboro-sponsored Team Ireland earned him a Silverstone test in a McLaren MP4/1, and it was Watson who set the car up for Jordan that day too.

Ten years later at that same freezing race track, veteran driver Watson was trusted by Jordan as someone who both knew his way around F1 machinery, and had no vested interest in trying to angle for a full-time race seat.

“I had no idea what it was going to be like, but it was actually quite nice,” says Watson of the Gary Anderson-designed machine. “It was a user-friendly race car.”

And so it proved as Jordan managed to pull itself out pre-qualifying purgatory halfway through that season and eventually finish a stunning fifth in the 1991 constructors’ championship.

That it was a pliable grand prix tool was proved by its roll-call of drivers who Jordan famously utilised that year: Andrea de Cesaris, Betrand Gachot, Roberto Moreno, Alex Zanardi and one Michael Schumacher.

“I told Senna he should put a Honda in the Jordan – and he’d fly!” laughs Watson.

Jordan Grand Prix and its memorable team boss had come crashing into the grand prix galaxy like no-one else. By this point Watson was a commentator for Eurosport – what did the rest of the paddock make of Jordan?

“I think there was an element of amusement and/bemusement,” he says.

“Eddie was the new kid on the block, and in a way a very unusual kind of team principal. The team was actually run by Ian Phillips [commercial director], Trevor Foster [team manager and engineer], Gary Anderson [technical director] and Andy Green [chief race engineer].

“Eddie’s role was the business side of putting the funding together. But the thing is, he was a personality, and would use that – particularly when it came down to the drivers, that was his market.

“’I fookin’ made you!’ That was always one of his favourite observations!”

There was someone in the paddock Jordan had managed to impress early on though, much to his team’s benefit with financial help through the years.

“Bernie Ecclestone was the salvation of that team,” claims Watson. “He likes that kind of character: a go-getter, self-made, a rolling stone.

“Bernie realised that Jordan had a value to F1, and needed to keep the team on the grid.

“There were 30 cars trying to qualify in those days, but they didn’t have charismatic team principals like Eddie.”

Watson and Jordan became neighbours not long after the team first made it into F1, and the former said that despite the unconventional approach, he wasn’t surprised the Silverstone squad made it like it did – and in his own way.

“Eddie was extremely ambitious, very motivated, very driven – not like other team bosses that were happy to be in Formula 3,” says Watson. “He would go out and sell, almost bully companies.

“He built the team in his own image. The graphics on these cars, they were extremely successful in terms of the visual appeal, and very much led by the man himself – the owner.

“He endeared himself both in Ireland and within most of the racing world. Eddie was a man of the people, very much of the public.

“Would you rather have a room full of Eddies, or a room full of Rons? You can have an ‘autonomat’, or you can have a guy who’ll get up and play the drums at the British GP.

“I think the public answered that question.”