The way Eddie Jordan tells it, a chance meeting on a private jet led to Damon Hill signing the £10 million sterling two-year contract to drive for his F1 team which was announced in the paddock at Zeltweg, Austria yesterday morning.

On the evening after the Italian grand prix, Tom Walkinshaw, the Arrows team chief, apparently forgot to wait for his world champion, leaving Hill standing on the tarmac at Milan's Linate airport. Conveniently, the HS125 furnished by one of the Jordan sponsors was waiting on the tarmac, ready to ferry the team hierarchy back to Oxford.

Hill hitched a lift and, by the time he stepped from the jet two hours later, had hammered out a deal to drive for the team. It was a tale Jordan recounted with a degree of well-practised relish, obviously delighted to have outfumbled all the media speculation over Hill's future career plans.

"Jordan have really pushed themselves forward and established themselves as a very competitive package. That wasn't clear at this time last year," said Hill, who turned down a Jordan offer at the start of this season.

"I think without question they will be winning races, and if you can win races then you can challenge for the championship, and that's what I really want to do."

Hill has been a personal friend of Jordan for a long time. "I first met Damon in 1984 when he was doing Formula Ford and I got to know him well when he moved into Formula Three in 1986," said Jordan, who won the title that year.

At Jordan's suggestion Hill moved to Dalkey with his wife Georgie and two children and has since commuted from Dublin to racetracks around the world. "I really enjoy living in Ireland," said Hill yesterday, "it's a perfect antidote to this world," he laughed, pointing to the hundreds of camera lenses in front of him.

Hill will partner Ralf Schumacher, younger brother of his Ferrari-driving arch-rival Michael, who is still regarded as one of the most promising young F1 talents, despite a string of disappointing recent races.

The chronology of Jordan's tale left a trail of scepticism amongst some of the more hard-bitten members of the F1 community. If Hill had done his deal 10 days ago, they wondered, why did Jordan continue their High Court battle with Benetton over the services of Giancarlo Fisichella?

Why did they allow the Arrows team gain the PR initiative by effectively announcing that Mika Salo was replacing Hill? And why did Alain Prost take until last Thursday to announce that negotiations with the Hill camp had fallen through?

Of course, these items will soon fade into insignificant footnotes in the F1 history books. The fact of the matter is that Hill has successfully balanced his financial aspirations with the need to gain a place in a team which offers a worthwhile technical base on which to build for the future.

Next season, Jordan will use an all-new, lighter, more compact and more powerful Mugen Honda V10 engine.