by Russell Atkins

TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW IN FULL: CLICK HERE

Looking back over Ireland's fortunes in the 2007/08 A1GP campaign, Adam Carroll admits that it was something of a season of two halves, but when it finally did get going, the emerald green car fairly flew.

Carroll joined the team for round two at Brno in the Czech Republic, replacing former grand prix ace Ralph Firman. The Ulsterman made an immediate impression by finishing up on the podium in the sprint outing, but whilst he went on to score points in six of the following seven races, it would be Mexico City some five months later when he next mounted the rostrum – albeit on the top step, having secured his nation's maiden triumph in the World Cup of Motorsport at its 60th attempt, and from fifth spot on the starting grid.

“The season has been great really,” Carroll summarised, speaking exclusively to Crash.net Radio. “It took a little bit longer than we had first hoped to get going. It was a completely new team this year – there are just two people who were here before – and they're a great bunch of guys. It took me a little bit of time to get used to the car, but once we did and figured it all out it was 'there we go, let's get on with it'. It all just came together and started to gel.

“We turned up in Mexico and won the race, went to China and got a third and then got another third at Brands Hatch, with what was the best car I'd had all year. To finish the season strongly is what you have to do, and we got sixth place in the championship – two points off fifth, which was a little unfortunate – but that was very good.”

Indeed it was and, moreover, a considerable improvement on Ireland's showings in A1GP's first two seasons, when the squad had wound up respectively eighth and 19th in the final standings. It could, though, have been even better still, had the 25-year-old from Portadown finished higher than 13th in the feature event at Brands, following a coming-together with Narain Karthikeyan in the Indian entry as the pair disputed second place early on that removed Carroll's front wing and sent him gravel-bound – at the time looking like it was game over.

Though with supreme skill he was able to rejoin and charge back through the pack again to finish almost within touching distance of the final points-paying position at the chequered flag – courtesy of a stunning sequence of fastest laps one after the other – it was very much a case of what might have been, as arguably the form man of the weekend was left to walk away from the meeting with just a sole third place from the shorter sprint race for all his efforts.

“Third place in the sprint was great starting from fourth,” Carroll insisted, not too downcast. “I got off the line into third and the pace was right there.

“[What happened in the feature race] was very unfortunate. We had a little bit of a problem with the left rear, which stopped us getting out in front of India in the first round of pit-stops, and then he was just defending very, very aggressively.