While the news that Michael Schumacher took victory in the opening race of the 2002 Formula One season falls into the category of "dog bites man" headlines, the sight of Eddie Irvine crossing the Australian Grand Prix finish line in fourth place, in a Jaguar that is, if anything, even worse than last year's challenger, definitely does excite contemplation of man biting canine.
Irvine, who qualified his deeply troubled Jaguar R3 a lowly 19th on Saturday, hadn't held out much hope of a successful race, but the first corner pile-up allowed him through to take his three points.
Irvine started from so far back that by the time he arrived at the scene of the accident a path through the carnage was clear.
Emerging into turn two, Irvine found himself fifth. When Jarno Trulli crashed out from second, Irvine inherited fourth and there he sat for the remaining 49 laps.
"What an incredible race!" said the Irishman afterwards. "We were certainly very lucky today, but we finished and the others didn't. As I entered the first corner, I couldn't believe my eyes! There were cars lying all over the place and having weaved through the carnage I found myself fifth.
"My thoughts immediately turned to who was behind me and I just kept pushing and pushing until the end. How did I get this result today? Simple, I just qualified really badly!"
Jordan's season, meanwhile, picked up where it left off in Suzuka last year. Giancarlo Fisichella had put his EJ12 eighth on the grid. But when Ralf Schumacher got airborne at the first corner, Fischella was grounded, punted off track by Sauber's Nick Heidfeld who hadn't reacted quickly enough to the melee developing ahead. Fisichella was incensed at the German's mistake.
"I'm really, really angry about what happened, as I believe the car was good enough for us to win some points," he said.
"It has felt good all weekend - better than I had expected - and I was looking forward to a good race. When I saw Ralf go flying through the air I slowed down to avoid the collision, but was hit by Heidfeld who hadn't slowed down and had gone off into the gravel and lost control of his car . . . I'm not too happy with what he did."
Rookie driver Takuma Sato guided his Jordan through the carnage and went into turn two in seventh place. But on lap 13 the Japanese driver's race was wrecked by electrical problems.
Eddie Jordan admitted it had been a disappointing day for his squad. "It's all the harder to take for the team because of the incredibly hard work everyone went through to get Takuma's car ready after yesterday (when he had a 150 m.p.h. accident). The mechanics were absolutely flat out, working until the early hours of the morning, so we're all gutted that both cars went out early."
