KEY POINTS:
Irish driver Adam Carroll led from pole position to win this morning's A1GP sprint race in Taupo.
The 26-year-old driver, who broke two lap records yesterday as he qualified on pole for both of today's races, proved untouchable around the demanding, dusty circuit.
New Zealand driver Chris van der Drift, who started from sixth on the grid after a disappointing qualifying session yesterday, finished the race in fifth place.
The 15-lap race unusually used a standing start for the Taupo round - as opposed to the usual rolling grid - in an effort to calm the field down into the tight and difficult first turn.
Series leading Irish driver Adam Carroll told nzherald.co.nz yesterday that the new Ferrari-powered cars were "actually really hard to get of the line fast."
Beside the Irishman on P2 was Netherlands driver Robert Doornbos, with Portugal's Felipe Albuquerque and Switzerland's Neel Jani rounding out the first two rows.
Fears of a poor start were quickly put to rest as Carroll, was easily first into turn one.
Chris van der Drift managed to get through to fifth place coming out of the first turn, but tried too hard into turn two, and found himself disappearing back down the order into ninth place.
Carroll quickly capitalised on his fast start, and started to open up a solid gap ahead of the Netherlands and Portugal. At the end of lap one, he was 1.82 seconds ahead.
Doornbos pushed hard in the early stages to cut into Carroll's lead, setting the pace for the field with a fastest time on lap three.
When teams started taking their compulsory pitstops, the field was mixed up again.
A fast stop would have put Doornbos out ahead of Carroll, who had already pitted, but a slow exit saw him out behind the Irish team and French driver Loic Duval.
A clean pitstop saw New Zealand pick up the pace, with van der Drift getting back up into fifth.
An unlucky ripple strip bounce saw Australia forced to retire with a broken wishbone with six laps to go, and Lebanese driver Daniel Morad was back in the garage with an unspecified suspension failure.
Meanwhile Carroll had found his way back to the sharp end of the field, as other teams completed their pitstops. At the ten lap point, he led Neel Jani, Doorbos, and Loic Duval.
Jani then set a fastest lap on used tyres, which he said the car felt "really good" on, to take a few tenths off Carroll, but was still 1.2 seconds behind with three laps to go.
China's Congfu Chen then put his car in the sandpit, as the yellow flags came out.
Portugal's Felipe Alberquerque was chasing van der Drift's fifth place hard, and managed to take nearly two seconds out of him, but couldn't catch him before the final lap.
Carroll held his lead to beat Switzerland by a shade under 1.5 seconds, with the Netherlands, France and New Zealand filling out the top five.
The main event feature race will run at 3:00 this afternoon. Chris van der Drift will start Black Beauty from 10th on the grid.
