Formula 1: Irvine will go out fighting

If Eddie Irvine departs the Formula One scene this year it will be not with a bang, but a whimper.

Irvine blazed into the sport with Jordan in the penultimate race of 1993 in Japan finishing a superb sixth - only to be punched on the nose by triple world champion Ayrton Senna, who was irate after being repassed as he lapped the rookie.

At the opening round of the next season in Brazil, the Northern Irishman was blamed for a four-car pile-up and banned from the next grand prix. Appealing, he incurred the wrath of the governing body who made him sit out three races instead.

As he famously put it at the time: ‘‘What a start to my grand prix career. I get punched by Senna in my first race, crash in my second, destroy four cars in my third and get banned from my fourth. People are going to think I am some kind of nutter.’’

Irvine took some time to live down the wild-man tag and prove he was a talented driver, coming so close to the world championship in 1999, though in recent years it is his playboy image that has also captured the headlines.

But with Frenchman Jean Alesi finally retiring, Irvine will start the new campaign in Australia next week as the elder statesman of the grid - he turns 37 in November - though he insists he is as fit as ever.

‘‘In tests I did I came second to Michael Schumacher,’’ said Irvine, once a Ferrari team-mate of the super-fit German.

‘‘But it is not age that matters, it is the will to achieve something and whether you want it.

‘‘You need a certain level of fitness, but F1 is not a physically-demanding sport because you sit there in the car and have got power-steering.

‘‘The guys coming into F1 now are much younger than me, but I have got 10 years experience on them. I now know how little I knew when I first came into F1.’’

But Irvine will have to be at peak fitness and performance for what will be the third and final year of his contract with Jaguar Racing that has reputedly netted him around €32.7m.

Irvine knows that if he fails to perform this year he will struggle to remain with the Milton Keynes-based team while there are few other options if he is forced out.

‘‘If I do a good job then there will be no reason for the team to replace me with someone else,’’ added Irvine, veteran of 130 races. ‘‘If I don’t do the job I don’t deserve to be there.

‘‘But I still haven’t achieved what I wanted to do in my career and I see that Jaguar are not moving forward then I don’t want to stay with the team.’’

The signs are not good that Jaguar, despite the massive backing of Ford, will move forward this year from last season’s eighth place in the Constructors’ championship and meet team chief Niki Lauda’s target of fifth spot.

Jaguar sacked technical director Steve Nichols just a few weeks ago after a serious design flaw was discovered in the R3 and although the team believe they have sorted the problem out they could struggle to finally make an impact on the grid.

Irvine, who scored the team’s four points in 2001 and claimed their maiden podium finish with third in Monaco last year as they finished with nine points, insists it will not be his fault if they fail to progress again.

‘‘If we haven’t got there it’s not down to my technical feedback,’’ he said. ‘‘I think a driver can only do so much.

‘‘If you look at Ferrari with Michael, he was there five years before they won the world championship, with by far the best driver in F1 and good people working for him. Its a long road.

‘‘I don’t think the people in the team can fault my application or the technical side. My races last year were fantastic.

‘‘Qualifying was bad, but in the races I didn’t see anyone who did better, with the exception of Michael.

‘‘But as a driver it means everything to me to make a success of this. I’m working very closely with Niki.’’

If he does take his F1 bow this year and head off to his yacht in the Mediterranean and homes in Dublin, Milan and the United States, then it will be a question of what might have been for Irvine.

The Newtownards-born driver suddenly found himself in championship contention in 1999 after Schumacher - to whom he had had to play the loyal lieutenant - broke his leg at the British Grand Prix.

But despite winning four races that year, the only victories of his career, and going into the final race with a lead of four points he could not stop Mika Hakkinen winning their Suzuka showdown and snatching the title.

‘‘I made a couple of mistakes that cost me the championship that year, but in saying that the car also wasn’t quick enough,’’ said Irvine, who missed out by just two points.

‘‘If we’d had the 2000 Ferrari in 1999 we would have won it, but that’s life I suppose. Jaguar is my team now and I’m much more focused on doing the job here.’’