But Irvine would not be bothered bringing up the rear at Silverstone if it ensured his Jaguar Racing car was more competitive in 2002.

"I don’t care if I finish last in every race this year as long as I have a race winning car next year," said the 35-year-old.

"That’s the way I see it. That’s why I don’t want us to compromise next year for this year. But at the same time I hope we can do good this year, though we would need to work flat out to try and get some more points."

Irvine admits that even if Jaguar go full-steam ahead on developing next year’s model it could still be several seasons before the Milton Keynes-based team are a Formula One force.

But Irvine insists that he could still be around to reap the benefits even though his £20m three-season deal with the team finishes at the end of the 2002 campaign.

"If I am still performing and I still want it, I’ll be in a good position to stay," said Irvine, who will be 36 in November. "If I can’t be bothered, I’ll walk away.

"As long as we’re going forward I’m hungry. Everyone keeps saying I’m not motivated but if I’m not motivated what’s that say about my team mates?"

Irvine believes that Jaguar could have taken the short-cut to success had they succeeded in luring top designer Adrian Newey from rivals McLaren.

But Irvine added he has faith in designer Mark Handford who was brought in too late to have a major say on this year’s car.

"Newey was a short cut but it will be a lot more personally satisfying if we do it on our own," added Irvine, who scored all four of the points Jaguar managed in their maiden season last year following Ford’s buy-out of Jackie Stewart’s team.

"It could take us two, three years - maybe a lot more, it’s difficult to say because we’ve got a new guy in Mark who I believe is very good but the proof is in the eating and we’ve got to wait until we drive one of his cars.

"At the same time we’ve got to give the guy the same equipment as the best guys have got and we can’t do that for two years or three years.

"We should really have put things in place two years ago to be looking really good for next year, because things were delayed and delayed and delayed.

"We’re really hoping without really having the infrastructure there to do the job."

Irvine’s main problem this season has been the car’s lack of a competitive edge in qualifying where he has been invariably stuck around the 12th or 13th place mark, making it difficult to challenge for points in races.

When the former Ferrari driver scored Jaguar’s maiden pole by finishing third in Monaco earlier in the season he had started from sixth place on the grid.

"This car is a lot slower than we expected it to be," he said. "When it came out I was very disappointed and ever since we have been working like crazy to make it quicker. We don’t deserve to be any better.

"It is Michelin’s fantastic tyres which have given us the opportunity to score points and we really need to do a much better job this winter on next year’s car like Williams did.

"But I’m actually having more fun in races because the Michelins don’t seem to qualify as well as the Bridgestones but then in the race we’ve a tyre advantage so I’m actually coming up through the field which is nice.

"I am enjoying my racing much more, but it’s just frustrating when I get stuck in 12th place on the grid all the time.

"We need to be running quicker than the rest to catch up, which we won’t do because you can’t turn this car into a Williams in races.

"But we are nibbling away. It’s not obvious unless you look in detail at what’s going on but we are nibbling away."