It was a reflection on the high expectations of the huge group of Irish fans present that Eddie Irvine's fourth place at the Luxembourg Grand Prix yesterday was a disappointing outcome on a day that promised much more.
And Eddie Jordan was disgusted to miss the chance of leap-frogging past Benetton in the constructors' championship when a brake disc failure pushed Ralf Schumacher out of fifth place in the race. Irvine had been in buoyant mood as he stepped aboard his Ferrari for his first front-row start in Formula One. At the back of his mind he knew a victory was possible if the cards fell the right way, but once again he will have to wait for another day.
He made a blinding start. "The car got off the line perfectly. It was 50 per cent me and 50 per cent an improved clutch," said Irvine.
This was the dream scenario for Ferrari, but by lap 10 of 67, it was clear the Ulsterman was in trouble. "In qualifying I had managed to get rid of the under-steer, but it came back big-time in the race," said Irvine.
Hakkinen was desperate to get through and by lap 13 he shot past. "He was able to close up so much on the braking," marvelled Irvine afterwards. Later in the race Irvine was passed by Coulthard, but the three points he earned yesterday takes his single season points tally over the 40 mark for the first time.
Jordan was not optimistic early in the race: "We have a very good engine, but our high downforce aerodynamics create too much drag". However, he was still disheartened by his team's performance. "We've had five races on the trot of total reliability, so I suppose we shouldn't be too disappointed. However the team had used a good strategy to get Ralf in a position to score two points, which would have put us into fourth place in the constructors' and just a point behind Williams," said Jordan.
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