Team Ireland wins the fourth season of A1 GP

A1 Team Ireland lifted the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport trophy high above Brands Hatch today after the perfect weekend for the team and its driver, Adam Carroll. They completely dominated the weekend from the time they took to the track on Friday.  Two poles, victory in the Sprint race and then another lights-to-flag win in the Feature race was the perfect end for them to the 2008/09 championship.

After an aborted start when South Africa’s Alan van der Merwe stalled on the grid, the race finally got underway with Carroll getting off the line to lead into Paddock Hill Bend. As the field came through the first corner an incident involving China, USA and India left China and India in the gravel and out the race and brought out the Safety Car as the cars came round to complete the first lap. USA’s John R Hildebrand Jr limped back to the pits for a new nose cone but rejoined the race.

Ireland’s Adam Carroll said: “It was a perfect weekend for us, it’s what we needed to come here to do, it was the plan so it really did come through. We knew by the pace we set in Portugal that if we came here and everything worked out ok we would be really hard to beat, and that was the way it worked out so it couldn’t have been better.

“I didn’t get a great start again, it’s really hard to start from pole, but I knew if I stayed where I was there wouldn’t be any bumping in to each other.

“In the second pit stop the team were nothing to do with why we were slow, the guys did their job but had to hold me because Switzerland was coming in and if they had let me go it would have been very dangerous so we lost some time.

Feature Race Results

Fastest lap: A1 Team Australia set the fastest lap (1m12.698s) of the Feature race with a speed of 183.4kph on lap 36.

Final 2008/09 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport points standings