Adam Carroll produced a near perfect weekend with a clean sweep of pole positions for both races and dominant race wins in both, the monopoly may have been ruined by Australia's John Martin taking the feature race fastest lap but it didnt matter, a truly dominant weekend for Adam Carroll helped Ireland secure their first ever A1GP championship and in the process prevented Switzerland (the leaders going into the final weekend) from being the first country to win back to back titles. Hardly anyone else got a look in for any sort of honour this weekend at Brands Hatch in Kent apart from John Martin taking the feature race fastest lap. With it being Great Britain's home event, there was much emphasis on them, especially seeing as this could be the team's final race in their current guise after their ongoing and very public financial difficulties, they were cheered up though with a feature race with a brilliant drive from 14th to 7th place from Dan Clarke which secured a top 10 championship finish for the team, a positive end to what has been a difficult year for them both on and off the track.SPRINT RACE
GRID
ROW 1: 1. Adam Carroll (Ireland), 2. Salvador Duran (Mexico)
ROW 2: 3. Jeroen Bleekemolen (Netherlands), 4. JR Hildebrand (United States)
ROW 3: 5. Filipe Albuquerque (Portugal), 6. Earl Bamber (New Zealand)
ROW 4: 7. Narain Karthikeyan (India), 8. Neel Jani (Switzerland)
ROW 5: 9. Satrio Hermanto (Indonesia), 10. John Martin (Australia)
ROW 6: 11. Daniel Morad (Lebanon), 12. Nicolas Prost (France)
ROW 7: 13. Dan Clarke (Great Britain), 14. Clivio Piccione (Monaco)
ROW 8: 15. Michael Ammermuller (Germany), 16. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy)
ROW 9: 17. Felipe Guimaraes (Brazil), 18. Aaron Lim (Malaysia)
ROW 10: 19. Alan Van Der Merwe (South Africa), 20. Cong Fu Cheng (China)
The 18 lap feature race on the famous Grand Prix circuit at Brands Hatch was certainly full of suprises but the race itself was eventually decided on the effectiveness of the pit crews. At the start, Carroll made a mess of his getaway and lost the advantage he had as Mexico's Salvador Duran went bravely on the outside of Paddock Hill to take the lead going up to Druids, Mexico have been much improved since Duran (himself a race winner back in 2006 at Laguna Seca) replaced the inexperienced and ineffective David Garza in the car, and he settled down to a steady pace ahead of Carroll, the debutant JR Hildebrand, Albuquerque, Karthikeyan and Bleekemolen. Crucially for Ireland, their main championship rivals Switzerland stuck down out of the points in 9th.
The race turned at the pitstops, Karthikeyan pitted early before the 2 leaders came in together, some super quick pit work from the Irish team enabled Carroll to jump ahead of Duran who also lost 2nd place to Karthikeyan too after the Indian driver had a impressive out lap. From then on Carroll, was never headed and began to set a string of fastest laps to win the sprint race by an incredible 7 second margin ahead if Karthikeyan and Duran who scored Mexico's first podium in nearly 3 years. Hildebrand, Albuquerque, Bleekemolen and Martin completed the top 7 while the Swiss driver Neel Jani managed to just hold off Nicolas Prost for the final point available for 8th place. Carroll also scored the fastest lap bonus point giving Ireland 11 points and the championship lead by 7 going into the final race
CHAMPIONSHIP WATCH - Ireland 96pts, Switzerland 89pts, Portugal 86pts
The task now was simple for Carroll, all he had to do was finish at least 3rd in the feature race and the title would be Ireland's for the first time. Portugal could still mathematically snatch the title but it was unlikely as it would have required a crazy set of results.
FEATURE RACE
GRID
ROW 1: 1. Adam Carroll (Ireland), 2. Clivio Piccione (Monaco)
ROW 2: 3. Jeroen Bleekemolen (Netherlands), 4. Neel Jani (Switzerland)
ROW 3: 5. Nicolas Prost (France), 6. Earl Bamber (New Zealand)
ROW 4: 7. John Martin (Australia), 8. Cong Fu Cheng (China)
ROW 5: 9. Filipe Albuquerque (Portugal), 10. Narain Karthikeyan (India)
ROW 6: 11. JR Hildebrand (United States), 12. Alan Van Der Merwe (South Africa)
ROW 7: 13. Salvador Duran (Mexico), 14. Dan Clarke (Great Britain)
ROW 8: 15. Daniel Morad (Lebanon), 16. Michael Ammermuller (Germany)
ROW 9: 17. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy), 18. Satrio Hermanto (Indonesia)
ROW 10: 19. Aaron Lim (Malaysia)
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DID NOT START: Felipe Guimaraes (Brazil)
The crucial 50 lap feature race would start with just 19 cars after Brazil were forced to pull out and would take 2 attempts to get the race underway after Van Der Merwe stalled on the grid therefore reducing the race to 49 laps.
Carroll made amends for his fluffed start in the sprint by nailing it this time and led thefield away into paddock hill but then a 3 car incident eliminated both Karthikeyan and Cheng and forced the fast starting Hildebrand into the pits for a new nose, this was disappointing for Cheng who hoped to score good points from China's best qualifying performance of the year. Netherless, the safety car was deployed and remained out until lap 5 when the race resumed.
Carroll got the jump on Piccione at the restart and raced clear as Piccione held up Bleekemolen, Jani, Albuquerque and Bamber, the latter would spin out just 2 laps later in frustration. Shortly after that, the first round of pitstops took place and after another fast pitstop from the Irish crew, Carroll re-emerged in what would later turn out to be an even bigger lead over the chasing pack. Piccione decided to stay out until the end of the pit window but this move backfired as his pace was not quick enough and he rejoined down in 5th place.
The real star of the show though was Great Britain's Dan Clarke who was a different driver in this feature race, he was regularly the fastest car on the track despite starting down in 14th place but by lap 16 after the pitstops he had made his way up into 8th place and on the next lap he made arguably the move of the race on John Martin to take 7th sending the home crowd wild in appreciation, he then began to hack away at the gap between himself and the 6th placed Duran. Meanwhile outfront, Carroll was running at a steady pace despite Bleekemolen slowly closing in but not quickly enough to make a telling impact.
Before the 2nd round of pitstops, Ammermuller and another debutant, Aaron Lim both crashed out bringing a disappointing end to Malaysia's season in which it promised so much after winning the season opening race at Zandvoort. Slick pitwork again from the Irish allowed Carroll to come out again in front this time with a 9 second lead over Bleekemolen in 2nd with Jani, Piccione, Albuquerque, Duran, Clarke, Martin, Liuzzi and Morad completing the top 10. Carroll began to up the pace again in search of the fastest lap that would give the Ireland team a 27 point clean sweep, this though would not happen as Australia's John Martin snatched that honour while chasing down Dan Clarke for 7th who was now struggling with a broken exhaust, he would eventually hold off Martin to finish 7th, afterwards he claimed it was the best and toughest race he had ever driven.
Carroll (despite upping the pace) was never headed and he cruised across the line to win by nearly 11 seconds and with it claimed the championship crown for Ireland, Bleekemolen and Jani completed the podium
WORLD CUP OF MOTORSPORT 2008-09 FINAL STANDINGS 1st Ireland 112pts, 2nd Switzerland 95pts, 3rd Portugal 92pts, 4th Netherlands 75pts, 5th France 47pts, 6th Malaysia 43pts, =7th New Zealand 36pts, =7th Malaysia 36pts, 9th Monaco 35pts, 10th Great Britain 28pts, 11th United States 24pts, =12th India 19pts, =12th Mexico 19pts, =12th South Africa 19pts, 15th Brazil 18pts, 16th Italy 17pts, 17th Lebanon 8pts, 18th China 7pts, 19th South Korea 4pts, 20th Indonesia 3pts, 21st Germany 2pts =22nd Pakistan 0pts, =22nd Canada 0pts
DRIVERS FINAL STANDINGS: 1st Adam Carroll 119pts, 2nd Neel Jani 99pts, 3rd Filipe Albuquerque 92pts, 4th Jeroen Bleekemolen 50pts, 5th Fairuz Fauzy 41pts, 6th Loic Duval 40pts, 7th John Martin 36pts, 8th Clivio Piccione 35pts, 9th Robert Doornbos 31pts, 10th Earl Bamber 30pts, 11th Danny Watts 20pts, =12th Narain Karthikeyan 19pts, =12th Adrian Zaugg 19pts, 14th Felipe Guimaraes 18pts, 15th Salvador Duran 17pts, 16th Marco Andretti 16pts, =17th Dan Clarke 8pts, =17th Daniel Morad 8pts, =17th Edoardo Piscopo 8pts, =20th Vitantonio Liuzzi 7pts, =20th Ho Pin Tung 7pts, =20th Nicolas Prost 7pts, 23rd Chris Van Der Drift 6pts, 24th JR Hildebrand 5pts, 25th Jin Woo Hwang 4pts, =26th Zahir Ali 3pts, =26th Charlie Kimball 3pts, =28th, Fabio Onidi 2pts, =28th Andre Lotterer 2pts, =28th David Garza 2pts, =31st Cong Fu Cheng 0pts, =31st Michael Ammermuller 0pts, =31st Satrio Hermanto 0pts, =31st Aaron Lim 0pts, =31st Alan Van Der Merwe 0pts, =31st Adam Khan 0pts, =31st James Hinchcliffe 0pts
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