Wednesday April 12th, 2000

Eddie Irvine said on Wednesday Mika Hakkinen had virtually no chance of retaining his Formula One drivers' world title this year because Michael Schumacher was almost impossible to catch.

Talking at Silverstone during testing for next week's British Grand Prix, the Jaguar driver said Hakkinen's only hope of winning the title for a third successive year would come if Schumacher broke his leg playing soccer.

German Schumacher has started the season with three successive victories to open up a 24-point lead over Hakkinen and Irvine said he could not imagine the Finn making up the gap without a slice of luck.

Irvine, who was Schumacher's team mate at Ferrari for four years until moving to Jaguar this season, said: "If you look at the reliability of Ferrari, Hakkinen will have to win six races with Michael finishing second.

"I can't really imagine Michael doing much worse than second so it is certainly a tough order for Hakkinen to win six races in a row.

"Michael had a great start to the season but he has just got to make sure he doesn't trip over on a soggy pitch playing football. I think the only way Michael will lose the championship is if he breaks his leg playing football."

Irvine admitted that McLaren had the faster car but said that with Schumacher behind the wheel Ferrari would be hard to beat.

"McLaren are that little bit quicker than Ferrari but Ferrari have got Michael," the Briton said. "Ferrari also have the reliability that McLaren don't seem to have at the moment.

"Michael is also very good to work with when struggling with decisions over tyres, set-up. We had a very good partnership."