Carroll secures both poles at Taupo
A1 Team Ireland's recent run of good form continued at Taupo today, where Adam Carroll put himself on pole for both of Sunday's races
"Two poles is really good," said Carroll. "The guys put in 100 percent all the time, and now we're getting the results. We've just got to try to keep it up tomorrow."
Carroll topped all four segments of qualifying, setting a new A1GP lap record with his feature race pole time of 1:14.411.
The first three places on the grid will be identical for both races, with Robert Doornbos earning two front row starts for Team Netherlands and Filipe Albuquerque getting a pair of P3s for Team Portugal.
The big surprise of the day was Team Australia, which equalled its best-ever qualifying position when John Martin put the car fourth on the grid for the feature race. Australia had briefly occupied the top of the timesheets before being overhauled by Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal in the final seconds.
"It feels really good," said Martin. "I think we proved in Malaysia that we had the pace to be in the top five but unfortunately we couldn't show it. We've been quick here all weekend, so we just have to keep it going and it should be pretty good."
A1 Team New Zealand's Chris van der Drift managed a sixth for the sprint race, but was squeezed back to 10th for the feature.
Sprint race: Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Adam Carroll Ireland 1:14.507 2. Robert Doornbos Netherlands 1:14.772 + 0.265 3. Filipe Albuquerque Portugal 1:14.788 + 0.281 4. Neel Jani Switzerland 1:15.202 + 0.695 5. Loic Duval France 1:15.360 + 0.853 6. Chris van der Drift New Zealand 1:15.457 + 0.950 7. John Martin Australia 1:15.504 + 0.997 8. Edoardo Piscopo Italy 1:15.614 + 1.107 9. Fairuz Fauzy Malaysia 1:15.710 + 1.203 10. Daniel Morad Lebanon 1:15.839 + 1.332 11. Adrian Zaugg South Africa 1:15.917 + 1.410 12. Salvador Duran Mexico 1:15.972 + 1.465 13. Felipe Guimaraes Brazil 1:16.074 + 1.567 14. Narain Karthikeyan India 1:16.146 + 1.639 15. Dan Clarke Great Britain 1:16.347 + 1.840 16. Clivio Piccione Monaco 1:16.424 + 1.917 17. Marco Andretti USA 1:16.791 + 2.284 18. Cheng Cong Fu China 1:16.885 + 2.378 19. Satrio Hermanto Indonesia 1:17.266 + 2.759 Feature race: Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Adam Carroll Ireland 1:14.411 2. Robert Doornbos Netherlands 1:14.676 + 0.265 3. Filipe Albuquerque Portugal 1:14.843 + 0.432 4. John Martin Australia 1:14.976 + 0.565 5. Neel Jani Switzerland 1:15.043 + 0.632 6. Fairuz Fauzy Malaysia 1:15.246 + 0.835 7. Loic Duval France 1:15.423 + 1.012 8. Marco Andretti USA 1:15.527 + 1.116 9. Daniel Morad Lebanon 1:15.587 + 1.176 10. Chris van der Drift New Zealand 1:15.622 + 1.211 11. Narain Karthikeyan India 1:15.699 + 1.288 12. Felipe Guimaraes Brazil 1:15.812 + 1.401 13. Salvador Duran Mexico 1:15.892 + 1.481 14. Dan Clarke Great Britain 1:15.902 + 1.491 15. Edoardo Piscopo Italy 1:15.942 + 1.531 16. Adrian Zaugg South Africa 1:16.164 + 1.753 17. Clivio Piccione Monaco 1:16.735 + 2.324 18. Satrio Hermanto Indonesia 1:16.783 + 2.372 19. Cheng Cong Fu China 1:17.184 + 2.773
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