Irvine slams Schuey Jr

"For someone who is a lap down on the field, I cannot understand Ralf Schumacher's actions today. He knew that Heidfeld and I were dicing for position over the last 15 laps or so and yet for some bizarre reason, there's Ralf trying to get between us. Not the most clever racecraft but that's Ralf."

Irvine was also left bemoaning the team's poor qualifying performance after failing to maintain his Monza form with a disappointing 10th place in the United States Grand Prix.

"All the damage was done on Saturday," said Irvine. "It made us compromise on strategy, the start of the race and pretty much everything. We really paid the penalty today for not qualifying where we were capable of, and had we of done so I'm sure we'd have beaten the Renaults today."

Team Principal Niki Lauda underlined the need for Jaguar to score points in the season finale at Japan to hold off BAR and Jordan in the constructors' championship.

"Had we qualified where we should have done there is little doubt that we would have walked away from the Brickyard with more points," said Lauda. "With one more race left and both Honda teams closely behind us in the championship, the need to score points in Japan cannot be overstated enough."