Fighting talk from Irvine

The Ulsterman expected to find himself 11 points adrift in the title chase as rival Mika Hakkinen stormed to a seven second lead at the start of the race.

But he was allowed to breathe again as the world champion made an elementary mistake and slid out of the race on lap 30 while Irvine cruised around to sixth place in his uncompetitive Ferrari.

A single point means he is level with Hakkinen on 60 points with three races remaining - all on tracks where the Ferrari should be more competitive.

And as he looked ahead to the last three races he took a sideswipe at his despondent arch-rival Mika Hakkinen too.

'That is the second mistake he has made when he was not under pressure -lets see if we can make it a hat-trick at the next race," he said.

'Its great to be back on top but McLaren missed a great opportunity here.

'I would have liked to have scored more points but I was being cautious -maybe too cautious but I wanted to make sure I finished.

'All weekend the car has not felt good and we made a change for the race which made it faster on the straights but worse over the kerbs.

'Fortunately there are no other circuits like Monza and we should be more competitive for the rest of the season.

'McLaren will have an advantage but they will only be a bit quicker and we should be in a better position to fight, fight, fight.'

Asked what the solution was to Ferrari trailing performances, he replied, 'Work, work work.'

'We have to study the car and work out what happened here.'