Thursday October 14th, 1999

Q: What are your feelings about Michael Schumacher coming back?

Eddie Irvine: I think it's fantastic. I pushed very hard for it with Ross(Brawn, technical director) and (Luca di) Montezemolo to try and get him back, to try to convince him. We've made a good team together for three and a half years and there's no one better to help you win the World Championship and have as your number two than Michael, that's for sure.

The two of us have worked together for a long time. We both have very different ideas and sometimes his ideas are right and sometimes mine are. It's a good balance. The fact that he's driving obviously makes it harder for the McLarens, that's another positive aspect.

Q: Can you be specific about what he brings to the team?

Eddie Irvine: Well, he brings great driving ability, that's the main thing. He can carry the car. If there's anybody in Formula One who can beat Hakkinen in a McLaren it's Michael. From that aspect, it gives us an extra ace.

Q: What psychological effect will his return have on the opposition?

Eddie Irvine: I'm sure they would have been much happier if Mika(Salo) had been here. I'm not saying anything against Mika, but Michael is Michael. From that aspect, if I was Mika(Hakkinen), I would have preferred that Michael had sat at home in Geneva, that's for sure.

Q: Were you surprised when Michael said he was coming back?

Eddie Irvine: I was surprised when he said he wasn't coming back, to be honest. He'd had such good tests that I thought that he was more than capable of doing it. But when he went to Maranello and he saw how important it was for everyone there, I think that's what changed his mind. He realised that the team had worked very hard and he could help them and he wanted to help them.

Q: What are your own personal aims in this race?

Eddie Irvine: To try and get as many points as possible and hope that Hakkinen gets as few as possible. At the end of the day I don't care what the result is here as long as I win the championship in Japan. It doesn't really matter whether I get ten points or three points here; what is really important is that I finish Japan with more points than Hakkinen.

Q: Feelings about the circuit?

Eddie Irvine: Difficult to say. I've driven around it in a Ferrari F50 which is very different to a Formula One car. I don't really know. A couple of corners are very tricky, there's no doubt about that, but until you get out there in a Formula One car you just don't know.

Q: And the heat?

Eddie Irvine: It's not hot! I've been in Dubai; now that's hot! That's impossible. There's talk about having a Grand Prix there. Well, it would need to be in the middle of winter. The heat there was just unbearable. So if the weather stays like this, I have no problem with it.

Q: Is the likelihood of rain in the race going to be a good thing for you?

Eddie Irvine: Depends if I end up with three wheels or four wheels on the car! It can go either way. In the two previous wet races our pit stops haven't been great. I lost a good result in Magny-Cours because of it and obviously it didn't help at the Nurburgring. But in both cases there were unexpected circumstances. At the Nurburgring, it was Mika(Salo) coming in having damaged his nose just before I was meant to pit, which put everyone in a bit of a spin. It can work for you, it can work against you. It screwed up McLaren as well. They only got two points and they were lucky to get those. Neither of us should have scored at all with our performances.

Q: Were you shadowing what McLaren were doing?

Eddie Irvine: Yes, pretty much. I think it's something that we probably didn't do very well. Perhaps we should have got on and done our own race because we were so far ahead of them we were in a position to get good points. It was a lost opportunity. Luckily enough, we've had fewer lost opportunities than they have, which is why we're still in with a chance.

We might do it again. We did it in Magny-Cours and we came up with a load of new procedures which didn't work in Nurburgring, which doesn't mean to say that we don't get it 100 per cent right at this race or McLaren get it 100 per cent wrong. If you look at Stewart, they got it pretty much right. Their pit stops were timed and executed perfectly, but it doesn't mean that they don't come here and make a complete mess of it. It can go either way.

The rain means it's a bit more of a lottery, but that can be good for us. If you look at some of the races when it's been down to straightforward performance then McLaren have destroyed us. Sometimes it can be good and sometimes it goes against us which is why McLaren are only two points ahead of us.

Q: Is it now a straight fight between Mika and yourself?

Eddie Irvine: I think it is. Frentzen, for instance, is 12 points behind Mika. He's going to have to win here and finish fourth in the other race without Mika scoring anything and with Michael back, and we've improved our car a lot since the last race, it's unlikely that both of us are going to screw up both races. We managed to do it in Nurburgring but I don't think his chances of winning one or two races are that great when you consider Michael is back. It will make it more difficult for everyone to win the race except for me, I hope.

Q: Was the car a lot better when you last tested it?

Eddie Irvine: We tested it before Nurburgring and we made quite a few steps, but we probably didn't get the maximum from it at the Nurburgring because of a few things we didn't quite understand. We now understand it fully and we've come here with the best car we've had this year.

Q: Two races to go, the best chance of your career; how do you feel inside, how do you cope with the pressure?

Eddie Irvine: I don't feel under pressure. I'm actually having trouble waking up most mornings. I want to win this championship for Ferrari, I really do. It's a great leaving present. I won't be driving for Ferrari next year and if I don't win the championship it will be something that I feel I could have achieved which I didn't. To win the championship for Ferrari is the Holy Grail of motor racing. I've got the opportunity. I just hope that I can do it. If I can achieve that, I will have no regrets at all. If I don't, then I will have regrets about leaving.

There's no point in worrying about it. I just have to concentrate and try and do what's necessary and not make any mistakes. There is a huge amount of pressure. When you drive around, you feel that pressure. You just have to look at the way Hakkinen slowed down as soon as it started raining a little bit(at the Nurburgring). He couldn't afford to make a mistake. The guys fighting for the championship have a lot more to lose than the guys driving around trying to get a good result in the race. It does affect you. It was very obvious in Nurburgring.

Q: In these last two races, will it be your driving or Mika screwing up that could possibly win you the championship?

Eddie Irvine: It will be both probably. He's been on pole for nearly every race this year, so if he starts from pole and drives a faultless race he should win unless something happens. We have Michael back and we have improved our car, by how much we're not sure yet but we have improved it and by probably as much as we have all this year. It's probably going to be both things, as it has been up to now. Mika was leading two races easily and he screwed up. We didn't take advantage at either race. I was running third in one and broke down and at Monza I only got one point, so there were two races where he made big mistakes and I didn't take as much advantage as was possible. We just have to make sure that when he screws up we're there to really nail him.

Q: What is your goal here?

Eddie Irvine: I don't have a goal here. My goal is to be leading at the end of Japan. Obviously if I finish fourth(or better), the championship goes to Japan and if I win in Japan and Mika doesn't score then I win. To be honest, I don't care if I finish second, third or fourth here. It's not important. What's important is what happens at the end of the last one, and we can't tell what's going to happen there. You just have to do the best here and hope that you go to Japan with a chance and that it works out there.

Q: How close is winning the World Championship at the moment?

Eddie Irvine: I'm not thinking about it, I'm thinking about winning this race and what we can do to get the best result here. It's an unknown, no one knows the circuit and we don't know how we're going to go. We know that we've come here with the best car that we've had this year. We don't know what McLaren have done since the last race. They probably have less potential than we have, because they are already at a higher level in terms of the car, so it's really an unknown.

Q: Are you the underdogs or the favourites?

Eddie Irvine: I think you have to say that we're the underdogs, with two points less. Hakkinen has basically won every race he's finished apart from Monaco. There are three races where we have outperformed them this year: Monaco, Magny-Cours where we could have outperformed them if it stayed dry, and Canada, where Michael was ahead of Hakkinen and I was right behind him. We were probably very competitive at the Nurburgring, although it conspired against us. We've improved the car since then. This is a similar circuit to each one of those circuits, so maybe we will be right there with them, but you still have to say that Hakkinen is the favourite. We haven't been sleeping, that's for sure. We've made a big effort over the last few weeks.