Saturday October 9th, 1999

Eddie Irvine has been in hot and steamy Dubai this morning; the weather is misty but very hot and humid, with an ambient temperature of around 38 degrees! The plan was to spend the day on the beach, but the misty weather put paid to that, as did a bout of 'Delhi Belly' - and next stop on the Marco Polo tour for Eddie is - Delhi.

Before he left Dubai, however, he had a long chat with Mohamed Bin Sulayem, the local rally champion, and also talked with the press. Mohamed brought along two cars from his own personal Ferrari collection, a Ferrari F40 and an F50. The two drivers discussed the car, and both came down in favour of the F40: "it's just a great car to drive," they agreed. However, Eddie said that his favourite was still the GTO, a car that he's still falling in love with! And Eddie said that while Dubai was very hot and humid, he did say it was "a great place to drive Ferraris, because the roads are so smooth and empty."

Eddie also held a press conference with three TV crews and major members of the local press, both English-speaking and Arabic. They gathered in the 38 degree heat at the Dubai Creek Golf Club, where a number of subjects were broached.

Eddie went on to talk about his Marco Polo tour. Someone made the mistake of suggesting that it wasn't a real Marco Polo tour, because it wasn't going to China, but his geography was swiftly corrected. "I thought Macau and Hong Kong were in China," said Eddie.

And before he took off for the airport, there were some little sound-bites from the Scuderia-Ferrari-Marlboro driver: Dubai: "hot and humid,"; Ferrari: "red,"; Johnny Herbert(his future team-mate): "small,"; Bernie Ecclestone: "mega, I have a lot of respect for him,"; Ayrton Senna: "a good driver,"; Michael Schumacher: "a good driver,"; Jaguar: "I've always like big cats,"; pit stops: "three wheels on my wagon - but at least it was better than France when I didn't have any at all!"; the media: "a necessary evil,"; Irish flag: "I'm not into flags, they don't mean anything to me."

Eddie is on his way to New Delhi now with his party, arriving there this evening and spending around 16 hours in India.