Jardine was born on 5 March 1952, at Oxford Street Maternity Hospital in Liverpool, England. His father, Eric Percy Jardine, was a Royal Navy pilot. The family moved to South Africa when Jardine was an infant, before returning to Wirral, Merseyside, when he was nine years old. Following his father’s death in 1962, the family returned to England.
After studying psychology and sociology, with a major in art, at the University of Warwick, Jardine began his motorsport career in single-seater racing cars. He funded his racing through holiday work on building sites and in bars, competing in a Palliser Formula Ford car in 1973. While in Kuwait, where he worked as an art teacher and a political cartoonist for the Kuwait Times, he took up rally driving for the local Datsun importers. He finished eighth on the Kuwait International Rally in 1975, but discovered a lack of funding prevented further involvement in racing.
Outside of Formula One, Jardine continued to compete in rallies on an amateur and semi-professional basis, primarily in the United Kingdom but also overseas. He has participated in four Arctic Rallies and was a three-time recipient of a journalists’ award. In 2013 and 2016, he competed in the Wales Rally GB with co-driver Amy Williams, the Winter Olympic gold medallist.
Jardine entered Formula One by obtaining a HGV1 truck driver’s license and taking a job with Goodyear’s Grand Prix Team in 1977, driving trucks and fitting tyres across Europe. He was then appointed a temporary engineer by Goodyear, before joining the Brabham F1 team as its race co-coordinator in October 1977. He worked with racing driver Niki Lauda and designer Gordon Murray, utilising his art training in Murray’s drawing office.
He moved to McLaren in 1980 as Assistant Team Manager to team principal Teddy Mayer, at a time when Alain Prost and John Watson were the team’s drivers. Jardine left F1 because he had reached the peak within the sport's administration sector to work for an American promotions company to learn about marketing, feeling it would give him some commercial abilities for use within F1’s financial sector. He returned to F1 within eighteen months, working for Lotus through CSS Promotions alongside drivers Nigel Mansell, Elio de Angelis and Ayrton Senna. In 1985, he formed Jardine Communications Ltd, a sports public relations company, with Louise Goodman as a colleague. Jardine International was taken over by the HPS Group in 2012, becoming HPS Jardine. He became the director of communications of the classic rally company HERO/ERA in 2019.
Jardine began his broadcasting career in 1982, covering the drivers’ strike at the South African Grand Prix for Independent Radio News (IRN) when their regular reporter was unavailable. This led to a role as IRN’s F1 correspondent. He worked for the BBC in the 1980s, including standing in as main commentator for Murray Walker at the 1985 German Grand Prix due to a scheduling conflict. He also commentated for the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
He presented the official F1 season review videos produced by the Formula One Constructors' Association in 1988, 1989, and 1990. Following James Hunt’s death in 1993, Jardine became the BBC’s full-time pit lane reporter, with Jonathan Palmer becoming co-commentator alongside Walker. He presented Opposite Lock on Sky Sports in the 1990s. When F1 coverage moved to ITV in 1997, he became a main pundit, remaining in the role until being dropped after the 2005 season. He has since covered A1 Grand Prix and provided broadcasting for Sky TV, Sky Sports News, Talksport, TalkTV and BeIN Sports, analysing F1 races for Africa and the Middle East.
Jardine’s wife, Jeanette, was badly injured in a car crash in 2007, requiring the amputation of her right arm. The couple have been married since October 1978.