F1 People – Eddie Irvine
- Length: 3:51
- Size: 3.6 MB
- File: people11.mp3
- Transcript: people11.pdf
- Torrent: people11.torrent
Welcome to Sidepodcast, this is the fourth episode in our latest mini-series F1 People, a series featuring seven important people in the world of Formula 1. So far we’ve looked at Colin Chapman, Niki Lauda, and Murray Walker. Today we’re focusing on Eddie Irvine.
Edmund Irvine Jr was born on the 10th November 1965 in County Down, Northern Ireland. His family were involved in motor racing, which got Irvine interested from a young age. He began in Formula Ford, and spent several years in the mid-field, with the occasional lucky podium. In his fourth year, he signed with a better team and started winning championships, meaning he was noticed by the WSR Formula Three team. He outperformed a car that couldn’t win by finishing on the podium 8 times.
Irvine worked through F3000 and the Japanese Formula Nippon series, and as he progressed, he was noticed. Eventually, F1 came calling, with a debut in 1993 for Jordan at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Having finally found his way into Formula 1, Irvine was determined to make the most of it. Despite being in a car that was often at the back of the grid, he would regularly try and push forward at the start, perhaps a little too hard. He started making a name for himself as a wild driver, one who could often cause early exits from races for both himself and the drivers around him. Some collisions actually led to him being banned for multiple races.
One particular incident involved Ayrton Senna, where Irvine allowed himself to be lapped, but then was frustrated when Senna didn’t move on to lap Damon Hill in front of him. Irvine took the initiative, unlapped himself and overtook Damon Hill. After the race, Irvine said Senna had simply been driving too slowly, so Senna walked into the Jordan Motorhome and punched Irvine in the face.
In 1996, Irvine was snapped up by Ferrari to team with Michael Schumacher, and played second fiddle to the champion’s number one status. During the first few years, Irvine couldn’t hold a candle to Schumacher’s performance, but he continued to fight hard and tamed his driving style. When Schumacher broke his leg in 1999, Eddie stepped up and took on the lead driver role, and he found himself fighting for the championship. Schumacher returned after six races away, and became the supportive second driver. In Malaysia that year, Schumacher allowed Irvine past him and held up Mika Hakkinen in the McLaren. There was a fiasco with McLaren accusing Ferrari of having illegal barge boards for that race – but that’s a story for another day. Ferrari were first disqualified, and then their points were reinstated, and it all came down to the last race that year. Unfortunately, Irvine did not manage to capture the title.
With Michael back to fighting fitness, Irvine decided he’d had enough of being second best, and left to join the fledgling Jaguar team. From 2000 to 2002, Irvine worked hard with the team, shared his knowledge, and developed the car but all he got in return was a slow and unreliable car. In 2003, the team’s financial problems began and Irvine announced his retirement from F1.
Since leaving the sport, Irvine has played himself in the 2004 film The Prince and Me, he’s been in talks to buy out or invest in several teams, and he’s built up a property portfolio worth millions. More recently, he’s been involved in television reality shows such as Soccer Aid on ITV and The Race on Sky One.
Although he started out being seen as a reckless individual, both on the racetrack and off it, as the F1 world became more corporate and bland, Irvine began to stand out as a real personality and someone who made the sport a little bit more fun. He spoke his mind, he raced as hard as he could, and whether you loved him or hated him, he added some colour to Formula 1.
That’s all for today’s episode of F1 People. Stay tuned as we have three more VIPs coming up this series, and until then you can leave your thoughts on Eddie at Sidepodcast.com.
Theme music: Natives of the New Dawn, People.
July 25th, 2008 at 21:43 #1 - Le BOL said:
A-ha! Irv finally made his appearance! He was my hero back in the 1990s and probably until the end of his career, the guy’s press conferences and quotes are simply precious, he currently has no heir in that area, well, maybe Webber?
And his bar in Dublin? Crazy stuff.
That has to be Malaysia, 1999 was the debut year for Sepang and Eddie won because Hakkinen had to make a weird 3rd stop, if I’m not mistaken. Schu was playing with Ed all the way showing that he can easily overtake him. Anyway, Ed was lucky DC retired from that race ’cause he overtook Schumi who was driving defensively and was about to overtake Eddie.
In Austria that year DC collided with Hakkinen on the opening lap and Hakk finished 3rd looking all gloomy on the podium and Eddie won the race by like 1 second with DC chasing him, he later said his Ferrari was swinging like a pig, something like that. Austrian GP was the 1st race with Salo driving for Schumi after his Silverstone crash. I think Salo was nicknamed the “prosthesis” because he also replaced Zonta that year and scored BARs 1st finish. Lot’s of memories, aye?
http://www.cocoon.ie/
July 25th, 2008 at 21:54 #2 - Steven Roy said:
Salo still has a race winner’s trophy from that season from the race where he beat Eddie and then pulled over to give him the win.
July 25th, 2008 at 21:55 #3 - Le BOL said:
Ed always spoke nicely about his early years in Japan, I think he was quite rich by the time he made it into F1. That was the main reason Jordan called him – because he knew the track (Suzuka) like the back of his hand.
I think so many of 1990s drivers were driving in Japan prior to F1: the late Ratzenberger, Salo, Frentzen, Schu Jr.
Now it seems a bit weird.
I respect him because he didn’t go to DTM or all these series for retired F1 drivers. Classy guy.
July 25th, 2008 at 22:38 #4 - me said:
he has a bar in dublin? we do f1 driver pubs
July 25th, 2008 at 22:41 #5 - me said:
you’re not le bol, cheers. my fault, i was supposed to proof read that and i failed. christine will have it fixed in a jiffy.
July 25th, 2008 at 22:48 #6 - Mattw said:
Yes, the race of the Ferrari barge board fiasco
July 25th, 2008 at 22:58 #7 - Mattw said:
That was Eddie’s First race.
Autosport published a transcript of the ‘conversation’, and it made for interesting reading.
Essentially Senna was shouting off at Eddie (Senna did not like backmarkers who did not jump out of his way) for almost hitting him. Eddie said ‘A miss is as good as a mile’ and then Senna hit him.
It was the FIA who found the Ferrari car illegal, nothing to do with Mclaren
July 25th, 2008 at 23:02 #8 - Mattw said:
I used to like Eddie in his Jordan days (despite removing Johnny Herbert from the Italian GP when Herbert had dragged his Lotus up to something like 4th place).
However I went off him somewhat when he decided he no longer wanted to be a racing driver, and instead became Schumacher’s stoolie at Ferrari for the £££££
July 25th, 2008 at 23:03 #9 - me said:
it’s commonly known that macca tipped them off though.
after the race ron was publicly bitching about the ferrari tyres being worn down to slicks, suggesting that the team might complain. and then the barge-board thing kicked off.
i also recall ron saying something about his team knowing about the illegal boards at a previous race, but as ferrari didn’t finish well there, they kept it quiet until malaysia.
sneaky
July 25th, 2008 at 23:04 #10 - Christine said:
The Austria/Malaysia error should be fixed in both the transcript and the audio.
Thanks guys
July 25th, 2008 at 23:06 #11 - Mattw said:
But that means our comments now look foolish.
I’m writing another letter of complaint to James Allen
July 25th, 2008 at 23:14 #12 - Mattw said:
I don’t recall that. The Ferrari failed the post race scruitenering. The barge broads were 10mm out (according to the FIA technical delegate) – I am not sure you would have been able to see that without a ruler.
That was separate issue, and entirety of the FIA’s making. They stated that the (new) grooved tyres must not be worn down to slicks, but did not specify a minimum tread depth, so the teams had to work out how far they could push things.
July 25th, 2008 at 23:15 #13 - Christine said:
This is why I said it was a story for another day!!
July 25th, 2008 at 23:16 #14 - Mattw said:
In 40min time, it will be another day
July 25th, 2008 at 23:22 #15 - me said:
the race prior to malaysia was the european gp. ferrari finished 7th (irvine) and retired (salo). i’ll have to dig out the interview and quote, but afterwards dennis said something like:
[ronspeak]
we were aware of the problem at the previous race but given ferrari gained little from the infraction we decided to sit on that knowledge.
[/ronspeak]
now, technically those aren’t ron’s words, but they’re as close to the best i can recall at the moment.
don’t ask me how they knew though? maybe stepney had words.
July 25th, 2008 at 23:34 #16 - me said:
btw. i love the “fia inspired” method of obfuscating text you’ve employed there.
July 25th, 2008 at 23:41 #17 - Christine said:
Who uses obfuscating in a sentence, really? I’d suggest you forgot to switch off the Ronspeak, although I can see you did!
July 25th, 2008 at 23:44 #18 - Alianora La Canta said:
People who’ve taken too many legal, political and/or philosophical classes (including myself).
July 26th, 2008 at 05:03 #19 - radix said:
eschew obfuscation
July 26th, 2008 at 10:46 #20 - Christine said:
Wow. Had to Google that, but it’s brilliant
July 26th, 2008 at 14:33 #21 - Le BOL said:
Zets why I posted a link to his “cocoon” establishment.
July 26th, 2008 at 14:38 #22 - Le BOL said:
http://drop.io/sidepodcast/asset/irvsbar
July 26th, 2008 at 14:39 #23 - me said:
mmm, i was wondering if they’d let us do a podcast from there, but i suspect it’ll be somewhat noisy.
we’ve got to check it out though.