On his ambition to become Britain's number one driver: 'It's not significant at all. I might just as well still be doing British F3. It carries no weight at all, does it? I might sell a few more hats, but that's not what I am in F1 to do.'

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 fear: 'But fear is an irrational business. The things that really scare the s**t out of me are earwigs, which used to infest our home in Ireland. I'd rather…

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 …