Irvine refuses to give up title chase

Having qualified a distant ninth and 12th they then fumbled a pit stop by losing one of his tyres.

Even so Heinz-Harald Frentzen failed to score, Mika Hakkinen got just two points and David Coulthard threw away his chance of a second win in three races.

So Irvine heads into the penultimate race of the world championship with 60 points while Hakkinen has 62.

Had Hakkinen won Irvine would have faced an insurmountable task to get back in the title chase.

'Its not all over yet. Two points is nothing and I still feel lucky,' said the Ulsterman who joins Stewart under its new guise of Jaguar Racing next season.

'It is great for the Stewart team that they got this win but all I am thinking about is the championship.

'When Salo came in first the mechanics got rid of my tyres and then couldn't find one of them when I made my stop.

'They eventually found it but I lost time.

'It is difficult when you have one group of mechanics serving two cars. We should have been attacking instead of covering Hakkinen but there were too many mistakes.

'Even so we have got off lightly as I am still only two points behind Hakkinen.'