Adam Carroll may have slipped under the radar since he captured the A1GP championship for Team Ireland back in May but he hasn't been idle and the low profile has been deliberate.
He has been quietly working away behind the scenes, planning his racing future, but now crunch time is approaching for the 26-year-old Portadown driver.
Within the next few weeks the make-up of the 2010 Formula One grid will become apparent and with four new teams set to join the grand prix ranks, it is probably now or never for Carroll.
If he is to realise his dream of graduating to F1 it must surely happen in the coming weeks. And, I'm told, the signs are encouraging.
After his impressive double victory which secured the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport for Ireland at Brands Hatch almost six months ago, Carroll took the conscious decision to sit out the summer.
He had offers to drive in a number of competitions including the football themed Superleague and the Formula Masters series but rejected them, opting to concentrate instead on his F1 goal.
He has been in talks with a number of teams and with the potential backers who will be needed to ease him into the seat of a grand prix car.
Drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen may earn multi-million dollar fortunes but hopefuls like Carroll must fund their graduation.
The payback, if they are successful, will come later which is the gamble investors and sponsors are being asked to take.
But Carroll has the credentials to be an F1 success.
He has been a winner at every level of motor racing through Formula Ford, Formula Three, GP2 and most recently A1GP.
He has raced against — and beaten — at least half of the current F1 grid including 2008 World champion Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainin, Timo Glock, Sebastien Buemi and Toni Luizzi.
They only thing he has lacked is money and the opportunities it brings.
The summer objective for Carroll and his advisors has been to raise the three-to-four million dollar budget required for the next step.
Shortly we will know if they have been successful.
Carroll won't — or more accurately can't because of confidentiality agreements — reveal which teams he is talking to but rumours continue to link him most closely with the new Manor Grand Prix operation which is expected to take to the grid next year under the Virgin banner.
The situation, however, has been complicated by the announcement of the exit of BMW-Sauber from the end of this season, putting established drivers like Robert Kubica (already snapped up by Renault) and Nick Heidfeld onto the market.
The Sauber team may yet survive under new owners but there are still questions hanging over the future of Toyota and their drivers Glock and Jarno Trulli.
But the encouraging news is that Carroll is still very much in the mix, whether with Manor or one of the other ‘expansion' teams — Campos, USF1 and Lotus — or even an existing team, like Williams who are expected to drop Kuzuki Nakajima (along with Toyota engines) and may lose Rosberg to Brawn.
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