and Adam Carroll

Petrol Ofisi FMS International’s Adam Carroll scored a double podium in Hungary as he followed up Saturday’s fantastic GP2 win with a second-place finish in today’s sprint race. Jason Tahinci could also celebrate for the team as he scored his best result of the season with an 11th place, despite visiting the hospital yesterday with an eye problem.

After his win yesterday, Adam started today’s 28-lap sprint race from eighth due to the GP2 reverse grid system. He made a brilliant start, moving up to fourth on the first lap, following Adrian Zaugg, Roldan Rodriguez and pole-sitter Javier Villa. On lap nine, Zaugg and Rodriguez collided while battling hard for position and Villa and Adam took advantage of the error to dart past into first and second respectively. Adam pushed Villa hard over the remaining 19 laps, the gap averaging around a second, but could not find a way past and crossed the line in second.

Adam collected 15 championship points this weekend and is now on 24 points. This puts him ninth in the championship, despite missing the first five races, and in the mix of a group of eight drivers that are separated by just eleven points from tenth to third place.

Jason was taken to hospital last night after his mechanical retirement from the feature race. A race marshal let off the fire extinguisher to put out a brake fire, but accidentally hit Jason in the eye with the spray. He suffered damage to his right eye, but was cleared to race today. He had an outstanding start from 18th on the grid, moving up to 12th on the first lap. He lost some positions over the next few laps, but despite his two spins managed to keep out of trouble, and took advantage of other retirements and mistakes. Jason eventually crossed the line in 11th, his best result of the season.

Adam Carroll: “It’s just been absolutely brilliant this weekend. Silverstone was fantastic and the car was good. We struggled in Nurburgring so we came with a different set-up and worked very hard this weekend. Even after qualifying we changed the car quite a bit, and again for today we made some changes. Today I got a very good start, moving up to fourth and I could see the two guys at the front were fighting hard and I could see something happening. When they made the mistake I went into second. Javier [Villa] did a very good job and he didn’t make a mistake. We were very close but I just couldn’t catch him. So I got a first and a second this weekend, which isn’t bad, and it’s good for the championship. I’m very happy.”

Jason Tahinci: “It wasn’t easy today because I had to wear glasses because of the problem with my eye and they kept steaming up. I had a similar problem to yesterday with the car, which was pulling to the left under braking in the third sector, but I had a good first sector so I could manage to keep people behind there. I spun twice, which was a pity, but I was pushing hard. If I hadn’t done that, then I think I could have finished a couple of places higher. But I’ve made an improvement and now I’m looking forward to the next race, which is my home event in Turkey, and I hope to get an even better result there.”

Paolo Coloni, Team Principal: “It has been a fantastic weekend and Adam has done a perfect job. Maybe it’s too early to say, but we scored very important points here in Hungary and the people at the front didn’t score so everything is very close in the championship. It was also Jason’s best result of the season so everything is perfect today. I’m pleased to see the progress we have made and we just need to continue the development of the car.”