Has it come to this? After three chaotic years with Jaguar, Eddie Irvine is wondering if his love for racing is stronger than the pain of failure

Auto Racing Digest, Dec, 2002 by Dan Knutson

IN 1999, EDDIE IRVINE WON FOUR Grand Prix and finished second in the World Championship, losing to Mika Hakkinen in points, 76-74. This year, Irvine scored two points (thanks to a fifth-place finish in the season opener in Australia) through the first 14 races of the season. That's not a very desirable career curve, and this fall from grace has left Irvine questioning his Formula One future.

Granted, in 1999 Irvine was driving for Ferrari, the best team in Formula One, and he is now with Jaguar Racing, an organization still trying to find its feet in a competitive environment

With an annual salary of roughly $10 million, Irvine is one of the highest-paid employees of the Ford Motor Company (which owns Jaguar), as well as one of the richest drivers in F1. But the 2002 season has been a difficult one for Irvine, and even with that financial reward it's something he doesn't want to repeat. "I don't need F1, but I like it," says the 37-year-old Irvine. "I'm not a one-dimensional person. I have a lot of things going on in my life, but F1 is what makes me smile and what makes me depressed. If I lose money on a stock, I don't really care so much. If I make money, it is nice. But if I have a good result in a race, I'm happy for the next two weeks."

Irvine spent four years with Ferrari as Michael Schumacher's supporting driver. When the German star broke his leg midway though the 1999 season, Ferrari focused its efforts on Irvine and nearly won the championship. After that season, despite his success--or maybe because of it--Irvine no longer wanted to play second fiddle to Schumacher.

Unlike most of Schumacher's former teammates, Irvine was never psychologically crushed. Irvine acknowledged that Schumacher was the best in the world and virtually unbeatable, so he didn't bother trying to do so. The rest of the F1 drivers, Irvine believed, couldn't come close to matching Schumacher. By the same token, Irvine considered himself to be the best of the rest

Three years on, Irvine is still singing Schumacher's praises, but nobody considers Irvine to be F1's No. 2 man. "Michael is good, very good," says Irvine. "He is the best F1 has ever seen. He is not as charismatic as Ayrton Senna. He probably drives with a lot less emotion, which is not as exciting for the fans, but that's the way all sports are going--the less emotion involved, the better. That's sad in a way, but that's professional sports."

Irvine received an extremely lucrative three-year contract offer to join Jaguar Racing in 2000. The team, formerly Stewart Ford, has gone through a painful growing process over that time as it attempts to transform itself into an outfit capable of challenging powerhouses such as Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams. There has been a lot of upheaval at Jaguar over the past three years as team bosses, designers, technical directors, and engineers have come and gone. Through it all, Irvine's experience was invaluable, and never publicly lost his motivation. The driver stuck it out, working tirelessly to attempt to improve the team.

As the 2002 season ground on, however, it became apparent that this year's Jaguar Cosworth R3 had major design flaws. "The car didn't turn out very well," says Irvine. "The rear suspension was flexing, and it was two months before we could fix that and learn what else was wrong because we basically had four-wheel steer. We fixed that and then found out that the aerodynamics were wrong. We fixed that and we still had difficulties."

Those problems were in the chassis, which meant that the horsepower delivered by the Ford Cosworth V10 engine couldn't be translated into results on the track. "The Cosworth is a solid package," Irvine says of the Jaguar engine. "It is not the best, but it is a long way from the worst."

Irvine is never shy about expressing his opinions, and from the start of the season he said the car wasn't very good, identified what was wrong with it, and what it needed. Yet he didn't want to start a political battle within the team. "It was very frustrating because I knew I was right and people were becoming divided," he says. "But all of the scientific tests bore out what I was saying. I just want to go forward. I just want to get the best result we can and to go as far up the grid as I am capable of going. I'm not interested in fighting with people or playing politics. There are always divided opinions, but I believe that mine is the right one. I understand that people think I was just making excuses, but the tests We did on the car proved that I was right."

It's a fight that Irvine is no longer enthusiastic about. "If I were going to have another season like this I would not continue," he says. "There is no point. This just depresses me, so maybe it is better to just walk away. But on the other hand, I doubt we could come up with a car as bad as this one again.

"You certainly lose your motivation in this car. The 2000 R1 could qualify in the top eight, the 2001 R2 could qualify in the top 13, and the 2002 R3 is qualifying in the top 20. That's not progression. The Jaguar management that was here at the time made mistakes at the design stage, and we're paying the price. Hopefully, our new management is making better decisions."