Irvine absence will be F1's loss

Formula One looks to have lost one of its most colourful and controversial characters as Eddie Irvine’s decision to sit out the coming season will almost certainly lead to full retirement.

Irvine will turn 38 in November, surely too old to bag any seats that become available for the 2004 campaign. His fellow professionals may be relieved to have escaped his scathing tongue but the sport will lose publicity when it needs it most.

The Ulsterman was the very antithesis of the ‘robotic’ drivers, who have nothing to say, that Jacques Villeneuve recently complained about. When it came to a quote, he was always available.

Irvine can now indulge in the ‘boy toys’ collection of fast cars, helicopters, planes and boats, along with the homes in Dublin, Milan and Miami, he has built up during a highly lucrative grand prix career.

If he had enjoyed a bit more luck and support then Irvine could also be retiring as a former world champion instead of a driver who won four times during a 147-race career.

The Northern Ireland-born racer was suddenly catapulted into title contention in 1999 when Ferrari’s team leader Michael Schumacher broke his leg at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Irvine had won the opening race of the season in Australia before assuming his usual subservient role in the team to the German until Schumacher rammed his car into the barriers at Stowe corner.

Victories in Austria and Germany immediately followed and when Schumacher returned to dominate the race in Malaysia before gifting his team-mate victory, Irvine went to the final race in Japan with a four-point lead over defending champion Mika Hakkinen.

Irvine, looking nervous for the first time in his career, faltered at the final hurdle as, after a heavy shunt during practice, he could only qualify fifth fastest, a position from where he could not expect to pressurise the sometimes fallible Finn.

Schumacher was on pole but made a poor start and allowed Hakkinen to take a lead he did not relinquish and grab the title by two points from Irvine, who finished third. If Schumacher had won, a podium place would have been good enough to win the championship.

It was denied at the time but many observers questioned Schumacher’s commitment to Irvine’s cause in Suzuka. After all, Ferrari were paying Schumacher around £25m (€37.7m) a year to regain the drivers’ crown for them after two fruitless decades.

The compensation for Irvine was that he was negotiating a move to Jaguar as he chased the title and was awarded a £20m (€30.2m) three-year deal.

Such riches were a far cry from his early years when the teenager from Newtownards used to crawl through gaps in the fencing at Silverstone and Brands Hatch to watch grands prix.

Irvine, named after his father Edmund, an amateur racer, has followed in his footsteps by racing historic single-seater cars before moving on to the traditional career path of Formula Ford, Formula 3 and F3000.

His career stalled in F3000 so he headed to Japan, where he had great success and first started rolling in the money before finally being handed his F1 breakthrough with Eddie Jordan’s eponymous outfit at the end of the 1993 season.

Irvine’s debut in Japan famously ended with him being punched by Ayrton Senna for re-passing the three-time world champion and telling the Brazilian he had driven too slowly!

He was branded an ‘idiot’ early the following season after being blamed for a multiple collision in Brazil which earned him a three-race suspension.

Unexpectedly named as Schumacher’s Ferrari team-mate for 1996, Irvine had a shaky start but proved a worthy adversary, particularly in 1999 when he so nearly emerged from the understudy’s role to grab the limelight.

Irvine was unable to make Jaguar a F1 force in his three years, with the meagre highlights coming in 2001 when he scored their maiden podium finish in Monaco and at last year’s Italian Grand Prix, where he again finished third. Both times he was only behind Schumacher and his Ferrari replacement, Rubens Barrichello.

Monza, where he was feted by the tifosi as if he had won the race, could be his last hurrah in F1 unless ‘Irv the Swerve’ can manoeuvre a dramatic return in 2004.