A1 Team Ireland’s Adam Carroll took his third victory of the season in the Sprint race at Taupo, New Zealand today and followed it up with second place in the Feature race to record Ireland’s fifth podium finish of the season. Ireland once again starred in the fourth event in the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport to move onto 65 points, extending their lead at the top of the standings to 13 points over new second placed squad Switzerland.

Hopes were high after Ireland’s dominant double pole position performance in qualifying and Adam Carroll didn’t disappoint with a perfect standing start to the 15-lap Sprint race. Thereafter he controlled the pace and, aided by more solid pit work by the Irish crew, was able to maintain his advantage after his mandatory pit stop. Carroll took the flag to record Ireland’s fourth victory in the A1GP series and their third of the season by just under one and a half seconds from Team Switzerland.

Another good start by Carroll in the Feature Race helped Team Ireland to a comfortable lead in the second race but all hopes of a third successive win were dashed when a minor delay caused by the anti stall system activating at the second pit stop cost Ireland the lead. But for this interruption Ireland would have retained the lead on the tight, challenging lakeside circuit. Carroll recovered from the brief engine stammer to finish a fine second and has now extended Ireland’s advantage by five points in its bid for glory in the World Cup of Motorsport.

Adam Carroll hailed: “It was a good day today, so I am happy with the outcome even if I feel we had the Feature Race under control apart from the software issue in the pit lane. It’s great to extend the lead in the championship, but obviously the competition is very tight as we all saw. The battle with Switzerland and Portugal last the whole of the main race, and I think we will see plenty more close racing to come.”

“Another very strong performance by the team which achieved our targets for this weekend in terms of retaining and extending our series lead,” said Team Principal Mark Gallagher afterwards. “The Sprint Race was faultless and we had victory in the Feature event in our sights until the pit lane issue delayed us. We will go to South Africa determined to maintain our edge, and with the way Adam Carroll and the technical team are performing we just need to keep on repeating these kinds of results.”