“If he had just stayed where he was I couldn't have overtaken him anyway, but he came hard back on me and left me zero room to move. It broke my front wing, which actually hung on there for a while, and I was still as quick as him if not quicker, but then about three laps later going down into Hawthorn's – which is the quickest part of the circuit – the wing just exploded and actually ripped the (steering) wheel right out of my hand.
“That smashed my hand up against the top – so that was a bit of a moment as well – and the tyre exploded as well while it was at it. I think if it had been ten or 20 metres later I would have just gone straight, so that was quite fortunate.
“I'm actually quite good at getting out of gravel traps! Over the years I've had a little bit of practice at it – once you're in there you just have to keep your foot in it and you always get back out, and I did. I could see that no one was coming, so I was just able to go back across and straight into the pits. I got the car back in, we put a new wing on and another set of tyres and just went out there.
“All I had to go for then was fastest lap. I was in clear air and was able to show the true pace we had at the weekend, which was race-winning pace, by quite a long way. We took over twelve-and-a-half seconds out of the leaders…”
Looking forwards rather than backwards, though, whilst Carroll does not know how much of the GP2 Series he will be participating in with former team FMSI – having rejoined the Italian squad for the second round of the main championship in Istanbul last weekend – one thing he does know; he wants to carry on racing.
“I think next season in A1GP – with a new car and with how good the team is – we're going to be very strong,” he stressed. “It's a fantastic team, the guys have worked so hard and are very good, the pit-stops are great and we all get on really, really well.
“Hopefully they'll have me back. We'll sit down and we'll figure something out, and I think if we come back next year we can come back to win it.
![Adam Carroll - A1 Team Ireland [pic credit: A1 GP Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/398622.jpg)
