Eddie Irvine Q&A
All those hours relaxing on the beach must have done Eddie Irvine some good, for his sixth place on the grid at Monaco represents both his and Jaguar's best performance of the season. It also matches his best achievement with Jaguar in Brazil and France last year. An indication of how speeds have increased is the fact that Eddie's 1m18.432s is a second faster than Michael Schumacher's 2000 pole! Over the past four years he's finished third, third, second and fourth on the streets of the principality, which is a pretty impressive form by any standards. He loves the place, and that was evident from his first laps of the track on Thursday. For Saturday he had the added bonus of Jaguar's new aerodynamic package, tried in Valencia testing last week. The team did not have many sets of the new parts and could not risk shunt damage on Thursday, and Eddie found an instant improvement with the new set-up. Adam Cooper spoke to the Ulsterman just after qualifying
"I got held up on the third run, but I actually went a little bit quicker on it, because I got held up! I braked a little bit early for the chicane and got a better run through it. Montoya braked on the line, so I had to go down the inside, but it worked out well because it actually made me go quicker. The next run was not a perfect lap, but round here it was as good a session as you can get."
"Here it's not the difference between 13th and sixth. I like the circuit, the car's well balanced, and we've got more downforce. But I don't think it's going to be sixth in Canada, where efficiency is more important. Here efficiency is less important, and our efficiency is not good. This has been a big step, but nowhere near enough. It's the difference between 13th and probably ninth and 10th. Last year we should have been fifth on the grid to be honest, but I had the worst qualifying session possible."
"Just everywhere. Braking is better, mid-corners are better... it's just a huge amount of downforce."
"Good. I think Michelin came here with a perfect tyre."
"Start and just keep going!"
"I don't see how I can. You just do a start and you keep going, and it will all come out. You're not going to be overtaking anyone."
"I don't need it. It doesn't make any difference to me. If people are slagging us off, I don't care. What's important is that we're going forward technically."
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