The high-points of Irish involvement in F1 came during the heyday of Eddie Jordan's eponymous Jordan team in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The iconic Irish team won four races during their 15 years in F1, with the first coming at the infamous 1998 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, on an emotional day for the team - where the Irish national anthem was wrongly skipped by the race officials on the podium.
Jordan had a solid run in qualifying for the race, with 1996 world champion Damon Hill lining up in third place and teammate Ralf Schumacher in eighth in the immortal yellow and black coloured cars.
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The race started in heavy rain, and a pileup after the first corner saw 13 drivers crash out - incredibly, both Jordan cars emerged unscathed.
A sensational restart from Hill saw him take the lead of the race, and he would hold the lead until lap eight when he was overtaken by Michael Schumacher.
With just under 20 laps to go, a dramatic crash between Schumacher and the ailing David Coulthard eliminated the German from the race and, in a Grand Prix of attrition, there were now only six cars left in the race, with the Jordans running first and second.
They would come home in that order, sealing a memorable win in an all-time classic F1 race. The fact that Jordan's first win was a 1-2 only made the occasion more special for their team principal, who joined the drivers on the podium - but there was an unwelcome surprise in store when the anthems were played.
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Eddie Jordan remembers reaction to Belgian GP anthem gaffe
Jordan and Coulthard (whose crash inadvertently led to the Jordan team's first win) share a podcast, 'Formula for Success,' and on this week's episode they discussed the ongoing F1 dominance of Max Verstappen - with Jordan saying he is "bored to death" of the Dutchman's ruthless winning streak.
Coulthard remembered becoming sick of the sound of the German national anthem when Michael Schumacher was winning in similar style in the 2000s - and Jordan used that as a segway to discuss the incident which saw the FIA accidentally skip the playing of the Irish national anthem on the podium in Belgium in 1998.
On the podium for F1 races, the anthems of both the winning driver and constructor are traditionally played - though only one anthem is played if these are both the same nationality. After 'God Save the Queen' was played for Englishman Hill, no further anthems were played, with 'Amhrán na bhFiann' skipped by the race organisers.
Jordan said that he was "absolutely slaughtered" for the error. However, he confirmed that the race organisers had not even had the Irish national anthem ready to play, in a disappointing revelation:
You talk about being on the podium listening to the German national anthem. Two of my wins, they never played the Irish national anthem.
I was the Irish entrant, because it was a free entry. When we won in Spa [in 1998], they didn't have the Irish national anthem to play. At the time, there was still a bit of a kerfuffle between the Irish and the English and bombs and this and that...
When the English national anthem got played, I got absolutely slaughtered by the Irish press because they thought that I was racing under a British licence - I never was.
Confusion stemmed from the fact that Jordan's team base was at the English Silverstone Circuit - even though the team was registered with an Irish licence, and raced under an Irish flag.
The moment from Belgium in 1998 was captured in the video footage, in which even the legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker makes a gaffe that there was no need for the team's anthem to be played, as it would have been a repeat of the British anthem.
It was an embarrassing gaffe - and, regrettably, not the last time Jordan would miss out on hearing the Irish national anthem played after a race win.
The 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix was a similarly chaotic affair, with Kimi Raikkonen awarded the race win in error for McLaren, before a countback days later handed the race win to Jordan's Giancarlo Fisichella.
That meant that the Finnish and British anthems were played, when it should have been the Italian and Irish anthems.
Thankfully, when Jordan won two races during the 1999 season (in which they finished third in the F1 championship), the correct anthems were played, meaning Irish fans got to hear 'Amhrán na bhFiann' blaring around a race track.
Featured image: Shutterstock
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