Carroll Pleased With British GT Qualifying Run

Adam Carroll was in good spirits after qualifying second on his British GT debut at Snetterton. The Northern Irishman, who replaces Rob Barff in the FF Corse Ferrari, struggled with traffic around the twisty confines of the 2.9 mile Norfolk circuit, but emerged as the closest challenger to Jonny Adam's Beechdean Aston Martin after team-mate Gary Eastwood had earlier qualified the car eighth for the first of the two races on Sunday.

Carroll is teaming up with Gary Eastwood in
British GT this weekend. (Credit: SRO Media)

“We can’t be that much closer than second,” said Carroll, who was separated from 12^th place Luke Hines by just half a second. “Everyone is super close, as you can see from the times; it’s always been like that here – especially in a Formula 3 car because most of the corners were flat out – but definitely it’s a lot more technical now. There’s more braking zones so there’s more chances to make a mistake, run a little bit wide and get a bad exit, so it’s a harder overall lap.

"A lot of the circuits that you’ve only ever driven in a single-seater are quite challenging in a GT car and there are a few corners that weren’t corners in F3 – you go through and think where did that come from? It just adds a different element to it.”

Carroll hasn’t raced at Snetterton since his Formula 3 days, but testing on the new configuration helped him get up to speed in his new mount, the fourth different GT3 he has sampled in a career that has taken him from BMW to Audi and McLaren.

“I’ve really enjoyed the Ferrari so far, it’s a great car,” he said. “Generally with any car you get into, as long as it’s roughly where it should be, they’re all pretty good to drive. If there’s a different set of tyres on it then the balance can be quite a bit different and that will require some setup work, but you don’t tend to get into a car and find there’s anything really wrong with it – that can’t happen if you go from car manufacturer to car manufacturer.”

With FF Corse already a proven race-winner this season at Rockingham, Carroll is looking forward to a strong finish to help Eastwood’s title challenge and potentially see out the remainder of the championship.

“I don’t see why not,” he said. “Like anything, we’ll just try our best and hope that it’s good enough to deliver us a good result. I’m really looking forward to it.”