Former Ferrari and Jaguar F1 driver Eddie Irvine has said Lewis Hamilton let himself down at the Italian Grand Prix last weekend - and as a result of how things shook out at Monza, the race for the 2010 FIA Formula One drivers’ title is now wide open.
“I thought Hamilton was looking pretty good [for the title], but today he really let himself down,” Irvine told BBC Sport in the post-Monza F1 Forum. “Lewis is a 100 per cent racer. He always gets stuck in.
“Today though, it got screwed up. But that is the way he races. He is always on the maximum. It is great [however] that it has come back.
“The guys, like [Fernando] Alonso and [Jenson] Button, who looked out of it [after Spa] are back in it again. It is fantastic for Formula One. I still think it will probably be Hamilton or [Mark] Webber. But we don’t really know [who will win it]. It really is wide open.”
Asked about Ferrari’s 1-3 result, Irvine added that he can’t imagine Felipe Massa was very pleased with third.
“I don’t think Felipe will have been that happy. Fernando won the race and did an amazing job. It was a perfect performance really from him. He got it on the pole and then made no mistakes,” Irvine continued.
“Fernando has made a lot of mistakes this year though when you consider what we know of him. That was what was great about him, under pressure he would never really make mistakes like Michael [Schumacher] would.
"But today he was perfect and it gets the championship back alive again. It is fantastic. Fernando is on top of his form. He is flying."
So what will be going on now in Massa’s mind?
“He [Massa] will just be trying to figure out how to go faster because that is the problem for him. Alonso is just that bit quicker. Fernando is super strong and he has always been super fast. Felipe thought he was super fast because he was getting there with Michael [when the two were team-mates].
“By the end of Michael’s career [at Ferrari] there was not much between them. But Alonso has come in and made us realise that Michael was obviously losing it towards the end of his career [with Ferrari] and it wasn’t Felipe getting better," Irvine concluded, as tactfully as normal.
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