Jordan King found himself frustrated by a lack of power on his British KF2 class bow in the 2010 Super 1 Series curtain-raiser at Shenington, but he nevertheless pulled a characteristically gritty and gutsy performance out of the bag to leave with a solid haul of points – and the conviction that there is plenty more still to come.
Jordan travelled to his ‘home’ circuit of Shenington close to Banbury in Oxfordshire still on a learning curve with his new Energy chassis, but boosted by a strong showing on his debut with his new mount in the opening round of the WSK Euro Series at La Conca in Italy a fortnight earlier.
Ready to do battle around the high-speed track against many rivals considerably older and more experienced than him – “I’ve never really paid much attention to that; I think if you show people respect then they will show it back to you,” he concisely and maturely opined – the Harbury ace headed into the weekend with high hopes, but ones that would unfortunately be rapidly blunted by persistent engine woes.
“When we’ve been testing we’ve always been pretty quick, and I was quite happy with the pace we had at La Conca,” he acknowledged. “There are only 14 drivers in KF2 in Super 1, but a lot of them are competitive and most of the field are actually within a couple of tenths or so of each other, which is good.
“In practice on Friday we were really fast, but then on Saturday we lost a bit of pace – we found out later that evening that there had been a crack in the piston from running it too lean. That cost us about three tenths of a second in terms of power we reckon, which with the pack being so close is quite a considerable amount.”
Indeed it is, and whilst seventh spot in qualifying, just under three tenths of a second shy of pole position, was not the ideal start, equally ‘we knew we could still do something from there’ – and a scant six hundredths more would have put Jordan third. The lack of power, though – hardly ideally-timed, given Shenington’s reputation as one of the very quickest circuits in the country – left the 16-year-old fighting a defensive battle in his two heat races, which he finished seventh and eighth to begin the pre-final from seventh.
“I got a really good start to dive up the inside into the first corner,” he recounted, “and then I nailed a few drivers around the outside of the second corner and got up to fourth. I even almost got third, but then it all kicked off and there was a bit of carnage and I ended up eighth. Once there was a bit of a gap to the driver ahead, it was difficult to catch them up.”
Following a brief challenge to the leading group after his excellent getaway, Jordan slowly fell back as he struggled to keep pace, his cause not aided by having been shunted from behind into the driver in front early on, leaving his nosecone dragging on the ground for the remainder of the race – and he went on to begin the all-important grand final from eighth.
Swiftly finding himself embroiled in an entertaining and energetic scrap with Alex Walker and experienced hand Rob Foster, the Repton School pupil’s JRP kart suddenly came alive in the second half of the race – enabling him to pull off what observers rated as the move of the day in diving neatly inside Foster into the first corner for fifth, catching his adversary completely off-guard with his superb late-braking prowess from a long way back.
He subsequently went on to chase down the battle over the runner-up laurels, falling barely two seconds short in the end and confident that with just a handful of laps more, he could have come away with an even better result. Still, compared to the ‘pretty disastrous’ start he endured to his 2009 national title challenge – when he was unceremoniously taken out by a rival at PF International – sitting just three points adrift of fourth place in the championship standings this time around heading to round two at Larkhall up in Scotland has left Jordan very much within striking distance.
“I managed to get into seventh behind Alex Walker, who defended for quite a while,” Jordan reflected of the grand final. “I eventually got past him and then chased down Rob Foster. I overtook him near to the end of the race, and then I was catching the group fighting over second, but the gap to them was too much to close in the laps we had left. I think my kart came on as others’ started to go off and some drivers began to make mistakes.
“We were as quick as the leaders in the closing stages, and if we had begun nearer to the front or got a better start like in the pre-final, I reckon we would have been able to stay with them. It’s hard to move forwards at Shenington, because it’s really easy to defend your position due to the layout of long straights and not many corners – and if you do get past it’s difficult to break away if the driver behind gets into your tow. Overall, the result wasn’t what I had been hoping for – it should have been a top three finish – but on the positive side, there’s definitely more still to come from the Energy chassis.”
The former British Mini Max Vice-Champion’s next outing is at Castelletto in Italy for his maiden appearance in the prestigious Trofeo Margutti – encouragingly, back at the scene of his first-ever podium finish in Europe in the WSK International Series just under twelve months ago.
“The Margutti is a big one-off event,” he concluded, “and I haven’t done it before, so I don’t really know what to expect. There will certainly be a lot of stiff opposition, but it would be good to get a strong result to show everyone that we are up there again this year.”
