The Suzuka paddock, a narrow, lightless crawlspace sandwiched between a concrete bunker of offices and the overflowing pit-lane garages feels charged, thick with a soupy electricity and the final realisation that this is it.
It all comes down to this. In the small hours of tomorrow morning Eddie Irvine will pull down his visor, squint upwards towards the start lights and make his bid to become Ireland's first Formula One world champion.
Eight months ago it seemed an impossible proposition. Crossing the finish line on a blistering Melbourne afternoon to take his first grand prix win, most smiled indulgently, reckoning it a nice consolation prize for a driver whose second-fiddle status forbade him to finish ahead of his team-mate. Four months later and impossibility became loaded with potential as Michael Schumacher slammed into a Silverstone wall, breaking a leg and exiling himself from the sport for four months.
Unchained, Irvine tussled, tumbled and triumphed in combat with McLaren's Mika Hakkinen to carry a seemingly hopeless fight to the last hurdle. Now the crystallisation is complete. A sprawling eight-month, 15-race global war, which has seen a season wrecked, rescued and wrecked again. The most enthralling season in recent memory has been distilled into two hours tomorrow, 53 knifeedge laps around Japan's Suzuka circuit.
Until yesterday, Irvine had the upper hand. The psychological war won through a combination of that Kuala Lumpur one-two, and the subsequent court-room victory that quashed Ferrari's post-race ban, the Irishman arrived here possessed of the kind of zen-like calm only a four-point gap can give. But as the first shots were fired in anger in yesterday's practice, it was the rattled looking Hakkinen who hit the target.
As Irvine struggle with grip around a circuit which suits his Ferrari less than the Malaysian track that gave him his lead, Hakkinen looked sharp and untroubled. Friday's though, as McLaren boss Ron Dennis is so fond of pointing out, are meaningless. Friday is phoney war. The real hostilities start in qualifying and yesterday Irvine was confident of better times ahead. "I don't think things are as bad they look," he said. "Tomorrow with a different set-up and fresh tyres, I'm sure I can do better."
The balance of power still hangs with Irvine. Down in the confines of the teeming paddock, amongst the fringe combatants in whose friendly fire Hakkinen and Irvine could be caught, the Irishman was still favourite. Hakkinen though, as proved in the past, possesses a resilience beyond the crying fits that characterised his Italian Grand Prix this year. Last year, as he battled Michael Schumacher, it was the apparently nerveless German who crumbled, beaten comprehensively by the Finn at the penultimate European Grand Prix and relegated to an unchallenging last after a start-line foul-up here in Japan.
But while Hakkinen and Irvine are the chief antagonists, the season may ultimately be decided by their team-mates. Michael Schumacher, who stunning supporting drive in Malaysia handed Irvine the victory he so desperately needed, is again likely to play a major part in tomorrow's proceedings.
However, should the McLarens qualify one-two, as has happened four times already this season, Hakkinen is likely to use David Coulthard in a role similar to Schumacher played in Sepang, employing the Scot as a trundling barricade to the Ferraris progress while the defending champion ekes out the kind of lead that saw Irvine coast to victory in Malaysia.
The best laid plans of man and machine could be undone by the circuit itself, however. Irvine's record here is enviable, a sixth to second record in successive years, a pattern he hopes to complete tomorrow. The McLaren, by contrast, has proved adaptable to any circuit and any surface and yesterday Hakkinen effortlessly notched the day's quickest time, outpacing Schumacher by almost half a second. The defending champion's record is equally impressive with victory last year.
Despite the continuing fallout from Paris, tomorrow's grand finale still presents a mouth-watering prospect. Whose is the stronger remains to be seen.
