The Belmayne A1 Team Ireland Grand Prix outfit are in Malaysia this weekend for round three of the 2007/08 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport with team driver Adam Carroll looking to add to his impressive run in the last round at Brno in the Czech Republic, writes writes RTÉ Sport's John Kenny.
Carroll is at the Sepang International Circuit, home of the Malaysian Formula One Grand Prix, having finished third and on the podium in the Czech sprint race before showing his real race craft in the feature race storming through the field from 18th on the grid to sixth.
New Zealand lead the 11 round series on 37 points with Ireland currently 7th in the standings on 23 points and with a maximum of 20 points to be raced for every weekend, there's still all to play for at the top of the championship standings.
Ireland suffered a nightmare season last term picking up only 8 points in total and the team is anxious to put that behind them.
With a new overall sponsor on board looking for maximum publicity, Team Ireland is acutely aware that they need to produce results, and with the series moving away from Europe for the next series of races, publicity may be hard to find.
Unless Carroll produces.
In his return to the GP2 series in 2007, the 24-year-old Portadown driver won two races and showed just why at one stage he was a Honda F1 test driver.
You get the feeling that Team Ireland has still to really get over their second season, but they have been busy restructuring.
Dan Wellesley has been brought in as race engineer and there is pretty much a new crew around the car.
Owner Mark Kershaw and team boss Mark Gallagher are also running the Canadian franchise hoping that the shared data will help to keep the Team Ireland car competitive.
Belmayne A1 Team Ireland had a difficult start to the weekend finishing tenth and twelfth respectively in today's practice sessions in very hot and humid conditions.
After an off interrupted his opening rookie session this morning, Carroll bounced back, having learnt the tricky 5.54km Sepang International Circuit quickly to be able to work with the team to help make improvements to the car throughout the day.
During the afternoon session Carroll's lap times were gradually dropping despite being on worn tyres and with a few more changes scheduled before the final session tomorrow morning the team are feeling positive ahead of qualifying.
