Adam Carroll

Adam Carroll
Nationality	British
Born	26 October 1982 Portadown, Northern Ireland
GP2 Series career
Debut season	2005
Current team	Super Nova Racing
Car no.	17
Former teams	Racing Engineering FMS International
Starts	72
Wins	5
Poles	1
Fastest laps	3
Best finish	5th in 2005
Previous series
2011 2011 2010 2007–2009 2007 2005 2003 2002–2004 2000–2001 2000 1999 1999	Auto GP Formula Renault 3.5 IndyCar A1 Grand Prix DTM Formula One test driver Formula Three Euroseries British F3 British Formula Ford British FFord Winter Series Formula Renault Campus France Formula Palmer Audi Winter Series
Championship titles
2008–09 2002 2000	A1 Grand Prix British F3 National Class British FFord Winter Series

Adam Carroll (born 26 October 1982) is a Northern Irish professional racing driver.^[1][2] He currently races in the Blancpain Endurance Series for Gulf Racing. He has also raced for Team Ireland in A1 Grand Prix, winning the series in 2009.

In 2010, Carroll made two appearances in the Izod IndyCar Series racing for Andretti Autosport just missing out on two full seasons due to a sponsor pulling out.^[3]

Career history

Early career

Carroll, who was born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, started his career in 1993 competing in karting events. He continued in karting until 1998. After winning the Elf LA FILIERE SCHOLARSHIP in 1999 he moved on to British Formula Ford, winning the Winter Series and taking 3rd in the festival. He raced in the British Formula Ford competition in 2001, before successfully making the move to British Formula 3 B-Class in 2002 with the Sweeney team. Despite driving year-old cars, Carroll was always an outright front runner and he dominated the class winning the title with a record points tally.

International racing

In 2003, Carroll moved up to Championship Class British Formula 3, but due to lack of finance, he had little stability and finished the year having driven with three different teams (8 podiums in a row with Menu), before competing in part of the Formula Three Euroseries season, where despite being new to both team, series, track and tyres, he finished in the points in his first race. He also partnered and outperformed future Formula One driver Nico Rosberg in an end of season event in South Korea. He continued in Formula Three throughout 2004, finishing as runner up to Nelson Piquet, Jr. before joining the 2005 GP2 Series, replacing Hayanari Shimoda at the Super Nova Racing team just before the start of the season.

Although Carroll's pre-season preparation for GP2 left him at a disadvantage to all the other drivers due to the lateness of his race deal and consequent lack of testing with his new team, he was immediately competitive, briefly challenging for the championship before slipping back as the season progressed due to reliability setbacks and on-track incidents.

Despite continually having trouble raising a budget for his racing, he has still managed to outperform drivers who have had funding readily available to them, including 2005 team-mate, and ex F1 driver, Giorgio Pantano. His undoubted talent caught the eye of Formula One and in 2005 he was signed as a test driver for Formula One team BAR-Honda. For the 2006 GP2 season he surprised many in choosing to join the Racing Engineering team when his previous team had a better chance of picking up the title. It soon became clear that due to Carroll's continued lack of sponsorship, the Racing Engineering deal saved him from having to drop out of top line motorsport altogether. He has since removed himself from the Honda driver program sensing a lack of opportunity as Button and Barrichello would be hard to replace.

Adam Carroll, seen here on the warm up lap of the first GP2 race at Silverstone, England on 10 June 2006.

The only real high point of the 2006 season was a pole position, third place and second place combo at Silverstone. It was clear throughout the season, however, that Carroll's team was not as strong as the majority of the other teams in the series. This was highlighted many times due to car failures that cost him many points throughout the year. As well as this, the car was distinctly slower and he also had trouble with other drivers hitting him from behind. This coupled with a driver error while leading race two in Hungary cost Carroll a lot of points that, should he have gained them, he would have been in contention for at least third in the championship. As it was though, Carroll's 33 points was enough to give him eighth place (equal points with seventh-placed Gianmaria Bruni with Bruni ahead having scored more wins). Carroll scored all of his team's points, outscoring his old team Super Nova Racing.

DTM, GP2 and A1GP

Carroll driving for FMS International at the Monaco round of the 2008 GP2 Series season.

For the start of the 2007 season, Carroll was driving a two-year-old Audi A4 in the German DTM series for the Futurecom TME team.^[4] On 26 June it was announced that he would replace Antônio Pizzonia in the FMS GP2 team for the event supporting the French Grand Prix.^[5] Carroll won at the Silverstone round of the GP2 series and scored 4 other points to take a total of 13 in one weekend, only his second back in GP2, in a car that had only scored one point beforehand. It was announced on 13 July that he had left the DTM due to sponsorship problems, and concentrated on GP2 for the rest of 2007.^[6] Carroll also went on to claim victory in the first race at the Hungaroring, despite starting sixth and changing all four tires during his mandatory pit stop.^[7] The season did not end so well for Carroll, as he scored only 2 points in the last three races despite being in contention for much more. However, he did finish in seventh place, ahead of many drivers who, unlike Carroll, had completed the entire season.^[8] During this time, Adam had tested the A1GP car for Ireland, impressing everyone at Silverstone and so for the second event onwards, Adam signed up to race in A1GP. His first weekend demonstrated yet again what a talent he was as he got Ireland's biggest points haul in the history of A1GP by netting a podium in his first race and despite starting 18th on the grid due to being blocked in qualifying, 6th in the feature race. Later in the season, he won the Mexico City feature race, Ireland's first win in A1GP. He also finished on the podium at Brands Hatch, en route to helping Team Ireland finish 6th overall in the championship.

Carroll began the 2008 GP2 Series season without a drive, but when Adrián Vallés was dropped by FMS International after the first round of the season, he took part in four races for his old team.^[9] He was then replaced by Marko Asmer.^[10]

For 2008/2009, Carroll returned to A1GP and Team Ireland again leading them to victory for the first time, in China. A1 Team Ireland became the fourth A1 Grand Prix champions, after a title battle which went down to the final round in Great Britain. Ireland won with 112 points, all scored by Carroll and included five race victories and three fastest laps.

Carroll announced in April 2009 that he was approached by two F1 teams in negotiation for a driver's seat for 2010.^[11] It turned out that the two teams were Campos Meta and Manor GP, both of which were new entries for the 2010 season. Carroll said that he could not raise the 4 million Euros needed to sign for Virgin.^[12] He was also in line for a drive with Lola, which was also planning to enter the sport in 2010, but the British marque's entry was turned down.^[13]

IndyCar

IndyCar Series team Andretti Autosport announced that Carroll was to take part in some races during the second half of the 2010 season.^[14] He ultimately competed in the Watkins Glen Grand Prix and the Honda Indy 200, finishing in 16th and 19th places respectively. He scored 26 points in total and finished the season 34th in the drivers' championship.

2011

Carroll driving for Super Nova at the Monza round of the 2011 GP2 Series season.

On 2 July, Carroll made a one-off appearance in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series at the sixth round of the championship where he finished fourth and third in the two races. This was in place of the injured Austrian driver, Walter Grubmüller.^[15] He also drove at in the Donington round of the Auto GP series taking pole and finishing 5th and 2nd in the races. He then returned to GP2 with Super Nova Racing for the German round replacing Luca Filippi.^[16]

Racing record

Complete Formula 3 Euro Series results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	DC	Points
2003	Opel Team KMS	Dallara F302/009	Spiess-Opel	HOC 1	HOC 2	ADR 1	ADR 2	PAU 1	PAU 2	NOR 1	NOR 2	LMS 1	LMS 2	NÜR 1	NÜR 2	A1R 1 6	A1R 2 Ret	ZAN 1 11	ZAN 2 15	HOC 1 5	HOC 2 Ret	MAG 1 Ret	MAG 2 17	17th	7

Complete GP2 Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	DC	Points
2005	Super Nova Racing	SMR FEA 5	SMR SPR 1	ESP FEA 7	ESP SPR 6	MON FEA 1	EUR FEA Ret	EUR SPR 2	FRA FEA 4	FRA SPR 6	GBR FEA 21	GBR SPR 8	GER FEA Ret	GER SPR 11	HUN FEA 9	HUN SPR 9	TUR FEA 7	TUR SPR 2	ITA FEA 5	ITA SPR 6	BEL FEA 8	BEL SPR 1	BHR FEA 9	BHR SPR 8	5th	53
2006	Racing Engineering	VAL FEA 14	VAL SPR Ret	SMR FEA Ret	SMR SPR 12	EUR FEA 3	EUR SPR 5	ESP FEA 10	ESP SPR 12	MON FEA Ret	GBR FEA 3	GBR SPR 2	FRA FEA 20	FRA SPR 14	GER FEA 6	GER SPR 8	HUN FEA 7	HUN SPR Ret	TUR FEA 6	TUR SPR 3	ITA FEA Ret	ITA SPR Ret			8th	33
2007	Petrol Ofisi FMS International	BHR FEA	BHR SPR	ESP FEA	ESP SPR	MON FEA	FRA FEA DSQ	FRA SPR 14	GBR FEA 6	GBR SPR 1	EUR FEA Ret	EUR SPR 14	HUN FEA 1	HUN SPR 2	TUR FEA 3	TUR SPR 3	ITA FEA Ret	ITA SPR 15	BEL FEA Ret	BEL SPR 6	VAL FEA Ret	VAL SPR 15			7th	36
2008	FMS International	ESP FEA	ESP SPR	TUR FEA 8	TUR SPR Ret	MON FEA Ret	MON SPR Ret	FRA FEA	FRA SPR	GBR FEA	GBR SPR	GER FEA	GER SPR	HUN FEA	HUN SPR	EUR FEA	EUR SPR	BEL FEA	BEL SPR	ITA FEA	ITA SPR				25th	1
2011	Super Nova Racing	TUR FEA	TUR SPR	ESP FEA	ESP SPR	MON FEA	MON SPR	VAL FEA	VAL SPR	GBR FEA	GBR SPR	GER FEA 15	GER SPR 5	HUN FEA 19	HUN SPR 12	BEL FEA 9	BEL SPR 11	ITA FEA 5	ITA SPR 11						17th	6

Complete DTM results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Pos	Points
2007	Futurecom TME	Audi A4 DTM 2005	HOC Ret	OSC 9	LAU 11	BRH 15	NOR 17†	MUG	ZAN	NÜR	CAT	HOC	18th	0

† Driver did not finish, but was classified as he completed 90% of the winner's race distance.

Complete A1 Grand Prix results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	DC	Points
2007–08	Ireland	NED SPR	NED FEA	CZE SPR 3	CZE FEA 6	MYS SPR 7	MYS FEA 7	ZHU SPR 4	ZHU FEA 16	NZL SPR 6	NZL FEA 5	AUS SPR 15	AUS FEA 13	RSA SPR 15	RSA FEA Ret	MEX SPR 4	MEX FEA 1	SHA SPR 11	SHA FEA 3	GBR SPR 3	GBR FEA 13	6th	94
2008–09		NLD SPR Ret	NLD FEA Ret	CHN SPR 1	CHN FEA 2	MYS SPR 5	MYS FEA 1	NZL SPR 1	NZL FEA 2	RSA SPR 4	RSA FEA Ret	POR SPR 2	POR FEA 5	GBR SPR 1	GBR FEA 1							1st	112

American open–wheel results

(key)

IndyCar

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Rank	Points
2010	Andretti Autosport	SAO	STP	ALA	LBH	KAN	INDY	TXS	IOW	WGL 16	TOR	EDM	MDO 19	SNM	CHI	KTY	MOT	HMS	34th	26

Years	Teams	Races	Poles	Wins	Podiums (Non-win)	Top 10s (Non-podium)	Indianapolis 500 Wins	Championships
1	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0

Complete Auto GP results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Entrant	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	Pos	Points
2011	Campos Racing	MNZ 1	MNZ 2	HUN 1	HUN 2	BRN 1	BRN 2	DON 1 5	DON 2 2	OSC 1	OSC 2	VAL 1 8	VAL 2 2	MUG 1 8	MUG 2 1	10th	64

Complete British GT Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	Class	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Points
2014	FF Corse	Ferrari 458 Italia GT3	GT3	OUL 1	OUL 2	ROC 1	SIL 1	SNE 1 Ret	SNE 2 2	SPA 1 21	SPA 2 3	BRH 1 8	DON 1	15th	39
2015	FF Corse	Ferrari 458 Italia GT3	GT3	OUL 1 2	OUL 2 6	ROC 1 DSQ	SIL 1	SPA 1	BRH 1 5	SNE 1 11	SNE 2 DNS	DON 1		12th	41
2016	Barwell Motorsport	Lamborghini Huracán GT3	GT3	BRH 1	ROC 1 4	OUL 1	OUL 2	SIL 1	SPA 1	SNE 1	SNE 2	DON 1		8th*	18*

^* Season still in progress.

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

Year	Entrant	Class	Car	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Rank	Points
2016	Gulf Racing	LMGTE Am	Porsche 911 RSR	Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6	SIL Ret	SPA	LMS	NÜR	MEX	COA	FUJ	SHA	BHR	NC*	0*

^* Season still in progress.

References

1. "Q&A with Adam Carroll". britsonpole.com. 31 May 2008. Archived from the original on 11 May 2009. Retrieved 16 April 2009.
2. "Adam Carroll". Motorsport. Adam Carroll Racing. Retrieved 30 December 2010.
3. Jamie O'Leary (14 July 2011). "Adam Carroll to make Auto GP debut at Donington Park with Campos". Autosport. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
4. "Carroll gets final Audi seat". Autosport. 12 April 2007. Archived from the original on 8 June 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
5. "autosport.com – GP2 News: Carroll replaces Pizzonia at FMS". Autosport.
6. "Adam Carroll Not To Take Part in DTM Series for the Rest of the Season". autoracingdaily.com. 13 July 2007. Archived from the original on 26 August 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2007.
7. "autosport.com – GP2 News: Carroll wins chaotic race in Hungary". Autosport.
8. :::Race Control:::
9. "Carroll: Simple to say yes". crash.net. 7 May 2008. Retrieved 7 May 2008.
10. "Asmer to race in GP2 with FMS". autosport.com. 10 June 2008. Archived from the original on 11 June 2008. Retrieved 10 June 2008.
11. Carroll eyes Formula One chance BBC Sport, 23 April 2009. Retrieved on 23 April 2009
12. Doing it the hard way – Sky Sports
13. Glendenning, Mark (25 August 2011). "Insight: Lola's F1 Car — Best F1 team you never saw". Autosport 205 (8): 46–49.
14. Andretti Autosport signs Adam carroll to limited 2010 Izod IndyCar Series schedule – Andretti Autosport, 29 April 2010 Archived 3 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
15. Peter Mills (30 June 2011). "Adam Carroll to make FR3.5 debut at the Hungaroring". Autosport. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
16. "Adam Carroll joins Super Nova Racing". GP2 Series. 21 July 2011. Retrieved 1 November 2013.

External links

• Official website