Irvine still evasive about future

Eddie Irvine remains unforthcoming about his future and although he believes Jaguar is getting better, the team is not yet living up to its potential. Many believe Irvine will be out of Formula One at the end of this season but the Irishman says he ...

Eddie Irvine remains unforthcoming about his future and although he believes Jaguar is getting better, the team is not yet living up to its potential. Many believe Irvine will be out of Formula One at the end of this season but the Irishman says he still has options. In an interview with ITV-F1 he was cautious about Jaguar's seeming increase in form since the French Grand Prix.

Eddie Irvine.

Photo by Jaguar Racing.

"It's difficult to say but one swallow definitely doesn't make a summer," Irvine said. "We deserved to be where we were in Magny Cours, but it's important to remember that it's a strange track; it helps cars with problems because it's so smooth. Also we had a tyre advantage there -- even compared to some of the other Michelin runners because they weren't all on the right compound for the day."

"Having said that, we definitely made the new car go better in the test we did at Monza before the French race so we knew our performance in Magny Cours would be improved over Silverstone. You've got to be careful and not get carried away though."

As for his future, Irvine just wants a decent car: "I'm very open minded. I want to get as competitive a car as I can get. Jaguar is definitely getting better but we're still not as good as we potentially can be."

The Irishman has been linked with a return to Jordan, the team he debuted in F1 with in the mid ninties, and was vague when asked if this was a possibility: "I just want to go racing and have the most fun I can have and do the best job I can do," he said. "I want to go somewhere that can be achieved. There's no rush though. No rush at all. For sure I'd like to have more control over situation, but I'm in a reasonable position for me."

Eddie Jordan is not adverse to the suggestion of Irvine returning to the team. At the beginning of this month Jordan, who is currently happy with drivers Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato, said Irvine was "always a possibility" should he leave Jaguar.