An interviewer asked, 'Eddie, if you have Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher on a tower, whom would you throw out?' Irvine answered, 'Mika Hakkinen, because Michael Schumacher is already out of this championship.'

Miss Belgium asked Irvine in the Spa paddock: 'How can I seduce you?' Irvine replied, 'Take your clothes off.' She wasn't charmed.

Writing in his Formula 1 magazine column (May 2001) about the Italian traffic police: 'They're a lot less anal than the British when it comes to speed.'

On the national anthems played as the race winners accept their trophies: 'I couldn't give a s**t which song is played or which flag is flown. I race for mysel…