Three months ago. Eddie Irvine, slouched between David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen, basking in the glory of his Austrian Grand Prix win, reckoned he'd proved a point.

"I've always had my critics. When I first started racing in Formula Ford there was a guy who said that Irvine will never make a racing driver as long as he's got a hole in his arse and I proved him wrong. I've proved him wrong again today."

The spark of proof burst into emphatic flame a week later with victory at Hockenheim, flickered and glowed dimly through empty and fruitless weekends at Monza and Nurburgring, and then finally erupted into the cherry-red flare of a brilliantly-orchestrated, judiciously vindicated, one-two in Malaysia. Even the weight of legal evidence conspired in his favour. A feeling of inexorability is hard to shake.

Events appear to be racing towards one conclusion. Eddie Irvine, who would never make a racing driver, will most likely be crowned world champion tomorrow. Suzuka on Thursday afternoon. Irvine is 20 minutes away from delivering his thoughts on this final race and the room where he will do so is already thick with photographers, all jockeying for position, looking for the shot, trying to capture the mood of a potential champion. It's an almost impossible transformation.

Six years ago, as Irvine strapped himself into a Jordan for his first Formula One race, he couldn't get arrested here, however much Aytron Senna may later have wished he had been after the Irishman memorably unlapped himself and received a punch from the Brazilian for his troubles.

Six years on, he can't get in the room for people wanting a piece of him. It would be hard to figure if you didn't look at how he got here, how a combination of diligence, determination and almighty slices of good fortune have spun together to create Irvine the title contender.

Unlike most F1 drivers, Irvine hardly set foot in a car until his late teens. Brought to watch his father, Edmund senior, to race, the young Irvine demonstrated little appetite for racing. According to his father, like most kids, he was more fascinated by the trinkets, stickers and badges surrounding the cars than the cars themselves. But when his father bought a Crossle 32F for an aborted return to racing, Eddie junior was given the chance to race. He wouldn't let it go. Couldn't.

Through Formula Ford in Ireland, Irvine made the cross-channel leap in 1984 and dawdled his way through two unproductive seasons until, in a less than fleet Talon car, he nudged his way amongst works Van Diemens that were then cleaning up in the 1600 Series.

Impressed by his chutzpah and pace, Irvine lucked out and was given a drive which resulted in a season of 16 wins, the Formula Ford championship, and a win at the British Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch.

Fate again stepped in. His performances in the 1987 season caught the attention of sponsors Marlboro, who offered him a test. Irvine turned up, convinced he would be offered a step back up to the Formula Ford 2000s that he had unsuccessfully raced two seasons earlier. But he was being considered for newer, lusher pastures.

Presented with a Formula 3 car, Irvine proved quick enough to seal a seat with the West Surrey team, then considered the F3 drive to get. Irvine was fifth in the series, and moved to F3000 with Pacific.

Despite comprehensively beating his team-mate J J Lehto (later of F1 outfits Onyx, Dallara and eventually Sauber and Benetton), Irvine was hard-pressed to beat anyone else.

At season's end, Irvine seemed to be heading into the wilderness. Enter Eddie Jordan and another fortuitous relationship. "I used to race against his dad and I've known the family for nearly 20 years," says Jordan. "Eddie was no big secret to me. When he came to England first with the Crossle car we helped him out. We always kept an eye on him. So when an opportunity came and he'd been let go by Marlboro we took him on for the Camel Jordan team.

"The great thing about him is you know you're going to get 100 per cent. And for an Irishman to make it in this sport, where there's no history and no contacts or a lot of support, it's great."

But despite third place in the series and a win for Jordan, Irvine was floundering as sponsorship dried up. A berth was, however, found - in Japan.

Japan was then considered a backwater. But Irvine made it work. As the series' popularity suddenly exploded in the early 90s, Irvine became one of its stars. By 1993 he had worked his way to second in the championship and also to a wildly healthy bank balance and reputedly wilder social life.

But as the Irishman enjoyed the fruits of stardom in Japan, old favours were called in and Irvine found himself being fitted to a Jordan Hart for the penultimate race of the 1993 Formula One season at Suzuka.

"At the time he really didn't want to do Formula One," Jordan recalls. "He was making a lot of money in Japan and he was really well hooked into the social life there, so it was it was complicated. I had to fight to convince him that he should be doing Formula One and he signed."

With the ink barely dry, Irvine finished sixth at Suzuka, tangled with Senna and earned the soubriquet that would wrongly attach itself to him for years, Irv the Swerve.

"He had super knowledge of that circuit," says Jordan managing director Trevor Foster. "Also Formula Nippon was then relatively quick compared to now, so the step up wasn't as great as it may have appeared. But still to do that in your first grand prix was something special. "People always see the jovial side of Eddie, and the arrogance, and that makes them think he's very laid back," adds Foster. "But he is tremendously committed. He is very strong mentally and knuckles down when he has to. Underneath the jokes he's very determined."

After two more seasons in the Jordan finishing school, Irvine reckoned on a move to another level and enjoyed another piece of timely good fortune.

"In 1995 I had another real fight with Eddie because he was interested in signing for Ligier," says Jordan. "I had to take him aside and say `look, please don't do that. Listen to me. We're involved here and we can get you to Ferrari, get you good prospects and it will be better for Jordan and for you'."

Three years the dutiful understudy to Ferrari's stellar attraction, Michael Schumacher, Irvine was this year given his ultimate chance at Silverstone. While ill-winds blew Michael Schumacher off at Stowe Corner and into a three-month layoff, Irvine's sails were suddenly filled, ballooned by possibilities.

Now the moment is here. Irvine has arrived at the defining moment of his sporting life. In the early hours of tomorrow morning he will line his Ferrari F399 up on the grid, watch, heart pounding triple time, as the start lights wink out in slow-mo surrender and will attempt to push himself into the record books.

And Irvine? "We'll wait and see," he said quietly on Thursday, "If it happens, it happens."

It has been happening to Eddie Irvine since day one. Who says tomorrow will be any different?