Lando Norris is now a Formula 1 race winner, but he is not the only driver who had to wait a long time for their first big hit. F1 history is filled with stories of drivers who had to work really hard for their long awaited first victory. In this seventh and final episode: the man who almost won the championship, Eddie Irvine.
It’s not uncommon for teams to assign a driver the number two position if they believe their teammate has a better chance at the title. It happened to Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes and Rubens Barrichello at Ferrari. But every now and then, a number two driver gets the chance to go for the title himself. And that is the story of Ireland’s Eddie Irvine.
Irvine made his debut in F1 in the 1993 Japanese Grand Prix and immediately did the most Irish thing imaginable: he got into a fight. Though to be fair, it wasn’t him who instigated it. He made some questionable moves when he tried to unlap himself against Ayrton Senna, which did not go down well with the Brazilian, even though he still won the race without any damage. After the race Senna got angry with the Irishman and punched him in the face, for which Senna got a two race ban.
| Eddie Irvine | |
|---|---|
| Year of first win | 1999 |
| Races before first win | 81 |
| Podiums before first win | 15 |
It was good for Irvine that this incident - as well as his achievement of scoring points on debut - got some eyes on him, because his car wasn’t going to do that. He was driving for Jordan, a team that up until that moment had scored a total of 15 points in its entire F1 lifespan. And because team owner Eddie Jordan bought all its car parts from the 1990’s equivalent of Wish and AliExpress, the car had a violent tendency to retire with mechanical failures. Irvine would only finish in four races during the entire 1994 season.
His first podium actually came during a race that was already analyzed during another part of this series: the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix, the first and only race won by Jean Alesi. While most of the field experienced mechanical problems, Irvine’s Jordan did something very uncharacteristic: it stayed alive and made it to the end of the race. And it was performances like these that got him some attention from the bigger teams. He had shown some incredible skill, being able to fight the likes of Nigel Mansell and Mika Hakkinen, though he also had a habit of crashing into them during those fights.
Switch to Ferrari
In late 1995, Irvine pulled a Piastri by announcing that he’d go to Ferrari shortly after Jordan had announced that he’d be driving for them again next year. Ferrari actually managed to buy him out of his contract with Jordan and secure his services for the next few years. At Ferrari he would be paired with Michael Schumacher and there could be no doubt about it: Schumacher was the number one driver. Irvine was just there to support him and pick up the scraps. At his first race for the Prancing Horse, he did just that: Schumacher retired with mechanical issues and Irvine finished third.
Here’s the thing about driving for Ferrari: it’s one of the best gigs in F1 and also one of the most stressful ones. Irvine’s podium earned him praise from the Italian press, but that praise quickly turned to hatred when he failed to score more podiums. A string of nine retirements in a row made it so that the Italian media were constantly calling for him to be fired. He had to shut them up, and he had to show the world that he deserved to be at Ferrari. A win would do the trick, but that wasn’t on the cards just yet. A series of thirteen podiums over the course of two seasons however, well that was something he could achieve. And so entering the 1999 season, still with Ferrari, Irvine held the record for most podiums without ever winning a race.
The Australian Grand Prix
Ferrari rocked up to the 1999 season with a car that could actually challenge for the title, something they desperately needed after being beaten by McLaren and Williams in the previous seasons. They would go and prove this at the season opener in Australia, which turned out to be one of the most bizarre F1 races ever.
Reigning world champion Mika Hakkinen got stuck in the pits on his way to the grid, before the race even began. The team had no other choice but to put him in the spare car, which had not been properly tested over the course of the weekend. As all the cars lined up for the warm-up lap, Hakkinen’s engine decided to start of its own accord. As the McLaren engineers worked frantically to get the car working properly again, Schumacher’s Ferrari saw his main rival having engine problems and decided to do the same thing out of sympathy. His engine stalled and the Ferrari mechanics couldn’t get it working again in time for the race start, meaning he’d have to start from the back. Meanwhile the Stewart of Johnny Herbert, determined not to get upstaged by the troubles of the frontrunners, had developed an oil leak and caught fire while already lined up for the start. This gave the Sauber of Jean Alesi an idea, and he retired with a gearbox issue right as the race began. And with Damon Hill spinning off into the gravel in turn three, that meant there were already three retirements and troubles for two of the frontrunners before a single lap had been completed.
The chaos of the race. Top row: Johnny Herbert's car catching fire, Michael Schumacher needing a push at the start.
Bottom row: Jacques Villeneuve spinning out, Schumacher gets a puncture and wing damage, Hakkinen slow on the restart.
The race then settled down for a few laps, but only a few. On lap thirteen David Coulthard pulled into the pits and wouldn’t leave again, the gearbox in his McLaren apparently deciding that thirteen laps was more than enough. Jacques Villeneuve dropped his rear wing on the same lap as a weight-saving measure, which turned out to be the wrong idea as he got stuck in the gravel. The Safety Car came out. All of this was great news for Irvine, who thanks to all these antics was now in second place and right on the heels of race leader Hakkinen. The Finn wasn’t in a comfortable position, driving in a car he hadn’t properly tested that weekend and with his teammate out with mechanical issues. He had had a great lead on Irvine but that was now wiped away by the Safety Car.
The race restarted on lap 18… for everyone except Hakkinen, whose accelerator decided not to accelerate anymore. The Finn was out and Irvine was now leading, ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Ralf Schumacher, and - surprisingly - Michael Schumacher, who had made staggering progress in the opening laps of the race. That came to an abrupt end on lap 27 though, when Schumacher got a puncture which also damaged his front wing. He crawled to the pits to get it fixed and came back out way behind everyone else. And as if that wasn’t enough, he had to make two more pitstops: one for tyres and one to get his steering wheel replaced. By the end of the race, Schumacher was last and more than a lap behind his teammate.
It wasn’t an easy drive home for Irvine though. Frentzen was hounding him for the entirety of the race and backmarkers were slowing him down way more than he wanted. But the Irishman held his own and by the end of it, he was a race winner in Formula 1. It was a real demolition race, because only eight cars managed to make it to the finish line.
What happened next
It was a great win for Irvine, but this victory was only the prelude to his best ever season. Schumacher broke his leg halfway through the season and couldn’t compete anymore, and the McLaren’s kept struggling with mechanical issues. Irvine meanwhile took four wins that year. One of those wins had come thanks to Schumacher, who had recovered in time for the final two races. In a rare act of selflessness, Schumacher had let Irvine take the win that day. The round before that though, Irvine had lost an easy win when Ferrari did what they do best and messed up a pitstop, pushing Irvine out of the points. By the season finale in Japan, Irvine was actually leading the standings and seemed on course for the title. But it wasn’t meant to be. The McLaren was just so much faster and Hakkinen cruised home to the victory and his second title. But because of Irvine’s heroics during the season, Ferrari did secure the constructor’s title.
