Eddie Irvine

Eddie Irvine has been driving in formula 1 since 1993, he has been driving longer than almost any other driver currently in f1. At 36 years of age he is one of the oldest too. The highlight of his career was when he drove for Ferrari in 1998 and 1999 with Micheal Schumacher as his team mate. He has had 4 wins in his career, all in 1999.

These days his results are more mediocre. He hasn't managed to finish very many races this season. When he has finished he has positioned between 7th and 11th apart from at Monaco when he finished 3rd. Monaco seems to be his best circuit. In the three years previous to this he has finished in the top 4 every time. This may have something to do with the fact that he has a boat there which he regularly stays on so he would have plenty of time to get to know the track.

Eddie's weak point is qualifying. He never gets a particularly good postion on the grid and has never had pole. When his finishes, his position is almost always better than his start position.

I think that Eddie has past his best now. I don't think that he will retire just yet but he will probably not achieve what he did with Ferrari again. His achievments with Ferrari were impressive, but Micheal Schmacher has shown how much one of those Ferraris can do (and are still doing), and it is a lot more than Irvine did.

Nowadays he is more of a personality than a driver. His opinions get everywhere. There are regular interviews with him in the Sun, the Mirror and on Teletext. He has so many opinions he should write for Ciao. Here are a few:-

On Women

Eddie says "Women are like cars". He is seriously misled here. Women are far more complex and intelligent than cars. They don't get very far filled up with petrol. Similarly, Irvine's Jaguar would not get very far with a tank full of pie and chips. I only wish I could run as fast as a Jaguar.

On Coulthard

After the Silverstone Grand Prix with Micheal Schumacher on 81 points and Coulthard on 47, "Coulthard has no chance of winning the Championship". True but a tad obvious.

On new drivers

"They are all small and spend all their time off the track playing playstation games". To back this up the Sun shows pictures of 4 drivers ranging from Nick Heidfeld at 5 ft 4 ins (small), to Enrique Bernoldi at 5 ft 8 ins (slightly below average). So he sort of has a point, Nick Heidfeld is titchy and Jenson Button is good at playstation games. This coincidently was said around the time he had to retire from a race because of a collision with Heidfeld.

On himself

I am the best driver in formula 1 apart from Micheal Schumacher. Yes, but what about David Coulthard, Rubens Barricello, Mika Hakkinenn, Ralf Schumacher and all the other drivers who beat him on regular occasions.

His website www.eddie365.com is also full of his opinions and him writing about what he has been doing between races. It is very good for the Irvine fan.

He works hard and plays hard. Apparently he has done more testing than both Schumacher and Hakkinen this season. He spends a lot of time going off in his helecopter and going to night clubs. He says that one of the things he is looking forward to about retiring is not having to go to bed early on the night before the race party. He is a notorious womaniser. He has a nineteen year old girlfriend and says marriage is not for him. This is because he says his single friends are happier than his married ones.

It seems that he is making a transition from driver to celebrity ready for when he retires from racing as he will need his fame to continue the lifestyle he has now, which I imagine he will want to go on long after he has finished racing. Who knows, he may even do pantomime!

Whilst not really being a fan of Irvine I have to admire his staying power in formula 1 as not many drivers achieve this. I do like Jaguars though.