Irish eyes smile for Carroll

Team Ireland secure maiden A1GP victory

Last updated: 1st April 2008

Adam Carroll

Adam Carroll

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Adam Carroll got the St Patrick's Day celebrations off to an early start after he led Team Ireland to its maiden A1GP victory.

Carroll held off the challenge Great Britain's Oliver Jarvis to win the feature race in Mexico by 3.355 seconds, while Jonathan Summerton was third in the Team USA car.

Carroll had started the race from fifth on the grid, however excellent work from his team saw him move up to second following a pit-stop on lap nine.

The Irishman remained on the tail of Switzerland's Neel Jani until the second pit-stop on lap 34, when Carroll emerged in front.

Jani, though, was hit with a penalty for "unsafe release", while a collision with Pakistan's Adam Khan saw him finish down in 19th.

"It's been three long years for the team," said Carroll.

"We knew they were capable of doing those times and today they pulled it off and it won us the race.

"We've put in so much effort and this is for everybody who has believed in A1 Team Ireland.

Celebrating

"Hopefully this is the first of many - it's just fantastic. I had champagne in my trophy and I don't think the celebrating will stop tonight - it will probably finish sometime tomorrow afternoon, I just hope everybody makes the flight home!"

Jarvis's second-placed finish was enough to see Team Great Britain move up to fourth in the standings.

And the British driver was hoping his two podium finishes in Mexico - Jarvis also finished second in the sprint race - will act as a springboard for the team.

"Mexico has been a fantastic place for me," said Jarvis, who scored Team GB's first feature race win in Mexico 12 months ago.

"I've had four great results here and we really wanted the win today but unfortunately Ireland just did a fantastic job.

"We got some strong points and we will look forward to going into the last two races and especially Brands Hatch on 4 May."

Earlier Team New Zealand completed their third sprint race victory of the season as Jonny Reid pipped Jarvis by 2.6 seconds.

Eight cars had been involved in a collision at the start of the race, however Reid kept his cool to pass polesitter Adrian Zaugg of South Africa and then thwart Jarvis and Switzerland's Jani.

Feature race result:

1 Ireland Adam Carroll 47 1:07'47.858
2 Great Britain Oliver Jarvis 47 1:07'51.213 3.355
3 USA Jonathan Summerton 47 1:07'51.962 4.104
4 Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen 47 1:08'01.511 13.653
5 Canada Robert Wickens 47 1:08'03.033 15.175
6 South Africa Adrian Zaugg 47 1:08'04.053 16.195
7 Portugal Filipe Albuquerque 47 1:08'04.400 16.542
8 Brazil Bruno Junqueira 47 1:08'05.111 17.253
9 India Narain Karthikeyan 47 1:08'14.362 26.504
10 China Cheng Cong Fu 47 1:08'18.529 30.671
11 Indonesia Satrio Hermanto 47 1:08'23.394 35.536
12 New Zealand Jonny Reid 47 1:08'23.909 36.051
13 France Jonathan Cochet 47 1:08'27.322 39.464
14 Mexico David Garza 47 1:08'36.940 49.082
15 Malaysia Alex Yoong 47 1:08'41.718 53.860
16 Czech Republic Filip Salaquarda 47 1:08'54.011 1'06.153
17 Lebanon Jimmy Auby 47 1:09'12.629 1'24.771
18 Pakistan Adam Khan 46 1:06'50.978 1 lap
19 Switzerland Neel Jani 46 1:06'51.461 1 lap
20 Germany Michael Ammermüller 46 1:07'57.774 1 lap
21 Australia John Martin 46 1:08'12.210 1 lap
22 Italy Edoardo Piscopo 2 3'02.870 45 laps

Sprint race result:

1 New Zealand Jonny Reid 14 20'59.462
2 Great Britain Oliver Jarvis 14 21'02.159 2.697
3 Switzerland Neel Jani 14 21'03.207 3.745
4 Ireland Adam Carroll 14 21'03.753 4.291
5 USA Jonathan Summerton 14 21'04.183 4.721
6 Portugal Filipe Albuquerque 14 21'06.587 7.125
7 Canada Robert Wickens 14 21'07.249 7.787
8 Netherlands Jeroen Bleekemolen 14 21'08.059 8.597
9 Malaysia Alex Yoong 14 21'09.061 9.599
10 Brazil Bruno Junqueira 14 21'10.414 10.952
11 Italy Edoardo Piscopo 14 21'11.000 11.538
12 France Jonathan Cochet 14 21'11.945 12.483
13 India Narain Karthikeyan 14 21'14.321 14.859
14 Indonesia Satrio Hermanto 14 21'15.062 15.600
15 Lebanon Jimmy Auby 14 21'16.432 16.970
16 Mexico David Garza 14 21'17.825 18.363
17 China Cheng Cong Fu 13 21'18.111 1 lap
18 Czech Republic Filip Salaquarda 4 5'47.327 10 laps
19 Pakistan Adam Khan 4 6'26.176 10 laps
20 South Africa Adrian Zaugg 2 2'46.393 12 laps
21 Australia John Martin 0 14 laps
22 Germany Michael Ammermüller 0 14 laps