Irvine delighted with Monza podium

Jaguar's Eddie Irvine has expressed his delight at taking his and Jaguar's first podium finish of the season. The Ulsterman slipped from fifth on the grid to sixth in the early stages of the race, but made the most of the demise of the Williams drivers and Kimi Raikkonen to bag the final podium slot

"The longer you're away the sweeter it is and this is simply fantastic for everyone at Jaguar, and it's great that it happened here at Monza. A podium is simply fantastic and after Monaco there is no better place to get it."

"During the first stint I pushed like crazy and was able to keep ahead of everyone comfortably, although I couldn't quite stay with Raikkonen. When he had a problem we decided to pit early because we didn't have to worry so much about it."

The result follows a well-deserved sixth place in the Belgian Grand Prix two weeks ago and marks a massive improvement on the team's troubles in the first two-thirds of the season.

"We knew coming into this weekend that we had a good chance of claiming a point or two," said Team Principal Niki Lauda. "But the car performed extremely competitively and Eddie drove a storming race.