Ireland take title in style

Team Ireland have secured the 2008/09 A1GP title after Adam Carroll won the feature race in the season's decider at Brands Hatch.

Carroll completes double at Brands Hatch

Team Ireland have secured the 2008/09 A1GP title after Adam Carroll won the feature race in the season's decider at Brands Hatch. The 26-year-old from Portadown secured his country's first 'World Cup of Motorsport' in fine style, leading the race from start to finish. Carroll also won the earlier sprint race - Ireland therefore becoming the first nation to win both races at a meeting this season. He crossed the line 10.156 seconds ahead of the Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen, with Switzerland's Neel Jani claiming the final podium position. Alongside Portugal, the defending champions were the only nation who could have deprived Ireland of the title heading into the race. However, with Carroll only needing to secure a fifth-place finish, the result never appeared in doubt. Portugal's Filipe Albuquerque eventually finished fifth behind Monaco's Clivio Piccione, while Mexico's Salvador Duran was in sixth place ahead of Great Britain's Daniel Clarke. With the race shortened to 49 laps after South Africa's Alan van der Merwe stalled on the grid, polesitter Carroll led Piccione and Bleekemolen off the line. However, the arrival of the safety car following a collision at Paddock Hill bend which eliminated India's Narain Karthikeyan and China's Congfu Cheng meant that racing did not get under way for another three laps. Carroll then streaked into the lead and with Jani and Albuquerque fourth and fifth the championship was evidently Ireland's to lose. They elected to pit early on lap ten and with Piccione, Australia's John Martin and Duran all having had spells in the lead, Carroll soon resumed control. Stretching out his lead to 6.5s at one stage, Carroll was 4.4s ahead of Bleekemolen by the time he made his second stop on lap 29.

Headache

As before - and despite a hiccup changing the right rear wheel - he regained the lead once the order settled down and, apart from a late headache trying to lap the Team USA car of John Hildebrand, victory was assured. 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. Of his second pit stop, Carroll revealed: "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. "The team are just unbelievable, they are the best team on the face of this earth in motorsport and I believe that fully. Their commitment is second to none and we are the best in this pit lane. These guys left on Friday night after 29 hours in the pit lane, that says it all." Bleekemolen finished second despite question marks over whether he cut the entry to the pitlane when making his second stop, while Jani's third place came even though he was suffering from a broken exhaust. Clarke also suffered exhaust problems in the closing stages but nevertheless fended off Martin to claim a fine result on home soil - Great Britain's car having started 14th. The final points positions were taken by Italy's Vitantonio Liuzzi and France's Nicolas Prost Ireland finished the season with 112 points, with Switzerland second on 95 points, three ahead of Portugal. Feature race result: 1 IRELAND Adam CARROLL 49 laps 04:14.970
2 NETHERLANDS Jeroen BLEEKEMOLEN 49 04:25.126
3 SWITZERLAND Neel JANI 49 04:28.534
4 MONACO Clivio PICCIONE 49 04:29.263
5 PORTUGAL Filipe ALBUQUERQUE 49 04:31.454
6 MEXICO Salvador DURAN 49 04:36.780
7 GREAT BRITAIN Daniel CLARKE 49 04:38.379
8 AUSTRALIA John MARTIN 49 04:39.463
9 ITALY Vitantonio LIUZZI 49 05:00.974
10 FRANCE Nicolas PROST 49 05:04.064
11 SOUTH AFRICA Alan VAN DER MERWE 49 05:28.875
12 LEBANON Daniel MORAD 49 05:31.227
13 INDONESIA Satrio HERMANTO 48 04:16.252
14 USA John R. HILDEBRAND JR. 48 04:19.441
15 MALAYSIA Aaron LIM 27 37:36.390
16 GERMANY Michael AMMERMULLER 26 36:04.588
17 NEW ZEALAND Earl BAMBER 6 10:09.420
18 CHINA Congfu CHENG 0
19 INDIA Narain KARTHIKEYAN 0
BRAZIL Felipe GUIMARAES 0 Final standings: 1 Ireland 112 points
2 Switzerland 95
3 Portugal 92
4 Netherlands 75
5 France 47
6 Malaysia 43
7 New Zealand 36
8 Australia 36
9 Monaco 35
10 Great Britain 28
11 USA 24
12 India 19
13 Mexico 19
14 South Africa 19
15 Brazil 18
16 Italy 17
17 Lebanon 8
18 China 7
19 Korea 4
20 Indonesia 3
21 Germany 2