Schuey writes off Irvine's chances

The injured double champion has written off Irvine's chances saying the championship should be a 'one-man show' for McLaren rival Mika Hakkinen.

But Irvine fired back, saying, 'What Michael says is not important. What matters is what happens here on the track on Sunday.

'Obviously he has less faith in Ferrari than I do.

'I know my mechanics, engineers and the whole team has never stopped working for me and they never stopped working for Michael."

Irvine will start the Nurburgring race level-pegging with Hakkinen on 60 points after the Finn threw away an easy victory in Italy two weeks ago.

'Mika has given a lot of presents to our team and the Jordan team,' Schumacher said.

'We will have to see how many more presents they will be handing out to the end of the season.

Hakkinen slid off at San Marino while leading and hit Coulthard on the first corner at Spa after fumbling to start.

'If you look at their performances it's pretty easy to see Mika should normally do the job and win the championship, unless he makes mistakes.

'I would be very surprised if he continued to make mistakes but we are all human and maybe he will and they will cost him the championship.

'I am very happy for Heinz-Harald but he was only able to do the job because of mistakes by Mika and maybe David.

'The championship should be a one-man show for Mika. But if he does make mistakes he could be stopped by Eddie or Heinz-Harald, although it is very optimistic to consider Heinz-Harald a championship contender.

'Ferrari is missing technical development because the car is simply not as good as the McLaren.'

It has been said Ferrari would be more competitive now had Schumacher been in command of technical development.

'I can't say how much better the car would have been if I had still been there,' replied the former world champion.

'But it is very clear that if they do not make good developments for the last few races they are going to find it very difficult to win the world championship.'