Irvine leaves Monza disappointed

The Jaguar driver's race ended in the team garage when a rare technical failure with one of the plugs in the R2's Cosworth engine scuppered his chances. Irvine had climbed as high as seventh and was in with a realistic chance of scoring points.

"It has been a bad weekend for me since the minute I arrived in Monza," said Irvine, who struggled to be competitive in qualifying and only secured a place on the fifth row for the race. "I made a pleasing start, but almost immediately I felt a power loss. It just kept going from bad to worse and that is why I lost so many places.

"The problem wasn't showing up on the telemetry and the team correctly decided to call me in on lap 16. The car hasn't really been to my liking all weekend and it was difficult achieving a good set-up.

Irvine added: "I haven't been doing too well in the last few races, and unlike earlier in the season, the reliability bug seems to have jumped on me. It is very disappointing not to have scored points today."