Irvine makes positive Jordan noises

Without saying anything directly, Irvine - whose three-year Jaguar contract runs out at the end of the year - gave some pretty clear indications of intent with regard to next year at Monza.

"I'm totally unconcerned about the situation," he said. "I'm quite happy with what's going to happen next year. I pretty much know what I want to do and I'm pretty confident I can achieve that. I know what Jordan think the Ford engine is going to do for their car. I don't know what the Honda's like - I know we've got a better engine because when I'm side-by-side accelerating away from the grid, I have more power than the Honda's got and more than the Toyota. The engine is third. I know it's not first or second."

On the subject of the Jordan team, he added: "I think EJ's got his act together again. Gary Anderson's there and it's a good little team. If anyone can do a good car with less money than anyone, it's Gary for sure. But it's too early to say what's going to happen."

As far as the status quo at Jaguar goes, he said: "I don't think Jaguar's got anywhere near as many technical people as they need. We've definitely come a long way since the beginning but that's not too difficult. We had a car that had the same pace as a Minardi with 100bhp more, so you can imagine how bad it was..."

And, on driving for less money, he commented: "Performance is important for next year but I'm not going to sponsor someone to go F1. I have a certain commercial value."