After an amazing season of A1GP racing the title went right down to the final race with A1GP Chairman, Tony Teixeira, presenting A1 Team Ireland’s seat holder Mark Gallagher and an elated Adam Carroll with the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport trophy in front of the cheering crowds. Neel Jani’s third place finish secured the runner-up spot in this year’s championship. Portugal’s Filipe Albuquerque came home in fifth to give them third place in the final championship rankings.
Ireland was in control at the front but there was a great battle for third with Switzerland holding off Monaco and Portugal. Great Britain’s’ Dan Clarke was also putting pressure on Mexico for sixth.
With five laps to go the order was Ireland from Netherlands, Switzerland, Monaco, Portugal, Mexico, Great Britain, Australia, Italy and France.
Carroll held his nerve to bring the Celtic Tiger across the line to take victory by 10.156-seconds from the Netherlands and Switzerland, and with it sealed the team’s maiden A1GP title. Irelandhad been in control all weekend, claiming two pole positions yesterday which were both converted into wins today.
“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,” Ireland’s Adam Carroll said.
Pos A1 Team Points Worst* 1 Ireland 112 0 2 Switzerland 95 4 3 Portugal 92 0 4 Netherlands 75 6 5 France 47 0 6 Malaysia 43 0 7 New Zealand 36 0 8 Australia 36 0 9 Monaco 35 0 10 Great Britain 28 0 11 USA 24 0 12 India 19 0 13 Mexico 19 0 14 South Africa 19 0 15 Brazil 18 0 16 Italy 17 0 17 Lebanon 8 0 18 China 7 0 19 Korea 4 0 20 Indonesia 3 0 21 Germany 2 0
