"There's no point crying," Eddie Irvine ventured with the faintest of grins after his dream of becoming the Formula One kingpin this season had disappeared. "We put up a good fight and when you consider what happened this year for us to be in with a shout of the championship here, well we can't complain too much."

He looked back to an extraordinarily-mixed season. "There were a few races where I made little mistakes that cost me one or two points and the same with the team and that cost us today. But everyone made mistakes all year, probably we made fewer than anyone and that's why we were in with a chance."

He refused to place any blame on his team-mate, Michael Schumacher for the way the race went. "Michael had a bad start and a lot of fuel on, but if you look at his lap times he was giving it some," Irvine said.

Like Schumacher, Irvine was critical of McLaren's number two driver, David Coulthard. "He (Schumacher) wasn't helped by DC. What DC did today I don't think was correct. When you're lapped, you're lapped. But we knew there were going to be games today and they played them.

"But I do think Mika did a fantastic job and he deserves the championship. Whoever won the championship today won it for different reasons but he won it in style. It was a fantastic drive."

The Finn himself was understandably relieved. "It's brilliant!" he said. "That was one of my best races and I shall never forget it. It's very easy to smile, I have to admit. It's one of these situations where it's very difficult to find the right words. It's a combination of great work from my team, and great support from my friends and family."

While Hakkinen heads for promotional duties, Irvine is off for a holiday in the US with his girlfriend. "I've been working my arse off for the last week or so," he said. "I've been dragged around every sponsor we have in Tokyo, so now I'm gone. I need a holiday."

Once the holiday is over Irvine begins a new life as number one at Jaguar, a step out of Schumacher's shadow. "It will be a different story, I suppose," he said. "I won't be up against Michael Schumacher in the same car every race, which will be nice. God help Rubens (Barrichello, Ferrari's new number two), because that's just tougher than anything. That's just like arriving at every race and being hit over the head with a cricket bat for four days. It's not a pleasant experience.