So utterly dominant was Ash Hand in his latest karting outing – the 2010 curtain-raiser for the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship at Rowrah in the Lake District – that not one of his rivals was able to hold a candle to the young Nuneaton star, enabling him to leave again with a near-maximum points haul...and firmly instated as the hot favourite for British title glory this year.
With fuel issues having severely blunted his challenge in the opening meeting for fellow national series Super 1 a fortnight earlier, and plenty of experience and a superb previous record around Rowrah – having claimed there in 2009 what he described as his finest victory to-date – Ash returned to the challenging Cumbrian circuit fired-up to achieve a good result, and he would be on it right from the ‘off’.
“We had done a lot of testing,” he explained, “so I knew the chassis and engine were both going to be on top of their game, and the fuel was all fine this time too. I was confident I would have the equipment beneath me to do the business – so I went to Rowrah aiming to win.
“I really enjoy the track, but you do need to know how to drive it, because it’s very difficult to get right and you have to be very careful over the big kerbs. We were extremely quick in testing, though, miles up the road – as much as six tenths of a second ahead of anybody else.”
That form was converted into pole position in qualifying on Saturday out of the 27 Junior Max competitors, before Ash literally blitzed his adversaries in the day’s two heat races, comfortably prevailing in both and setting fastest lap in the second for good measure, even enjoying the luxury of being able to back off in the closing stages to save his tyres for the final – which he went on to magnificently lead from lights-out to chequered flag.
“Everything just seemed to fall into place,” the 15-year-old acknowledged. “I got a good start, got away and then built up a decent gap. I initially had a three-second advantage over my team-mate Fraser O’Brien, and I extended that throughout the race. When he threw a chain just over halfway through, I had a huge gap over second place.”
Indeed, Ash’s margin over his closest pursuer was as great as 15 seconds at one stage, but again maturely electing to preserve his equipment, the Maple Park ace sagely backed off towards the end to the tune of as much as half a second a lap to cross the finish line just over ten seconds to the good following a truly peerless performance – and the spoils of victory were just reward after going unchallenged all day.
On Sunday, however, the P1 Racing speed demon would face more adversity, firstly finding himself pipped to pole position by O’Brien in the dying moments of qualifying, as his team-mate benefitted from being out on-track at just the right moment to narrowly nick the advantage. The only time all weekend that Ash was not quickest, he nonetheless remained optimistic of being able to turn the tables come the races.
In the opening heat, the George Eliot School pupil tracked O’Brien closely, palpably the faster of the pair but intelligently playing the team game – mindful of the fact that he did not want to risk causing an accident between team-mates, and also knowing he only needed to finish second to secure pole again for the final – until the Welshman hit difficulties that let Ash through.
A straightforward win in heat two, meanwhile, displayed shades of the previous day, before a disqualification on mechanical grounds sent the Warwickshire teenager right down to plum last on the grid for the final – and on a mission to prove a point.
“I gained a few places at the start,” he recounted, “and then just made my way through lap-by-lap. I took eight drivers on the first lap, then four or five on the next – I was able to drive through the pack pretty quickly to be honest. Five laps in I was already up to eighth – and that was the point where I really started to believe I could win.
“I got up to the front pack, and followed Fraser past Declan Jones into third. I overtook Fraser, and then there was a three-second gap ahead to the leader Jacob Hunstone – but I was catching him at the rate of seven tenths per lap. I could see him looking over his shoulder wondering where I was, and though he was clearly trying to push harder and harder, no matter what he did I was still just so much quicker.
“I knew I’d got him as soon as he started looking behind; I think because I had come from so far back, when he saw me chasing him, mentally that was where he lost the race. He began to make some mistakes, and that just made it all-the-easier for me. When I caught him I got past him straightaway, and after that I just paced myself to the end. I was so happy when it finished – I couldn’t believe I had actually done it! I had told everybody I was going to win and obviously I had wanted to win, but I had been thinking it would be a pretty tall order...”
Indeed, having quipped to pole-sitter Josh Parker that he would overtake him on the very last lap, he did so rather sooner than that – and his extraordinary charge even drew comparisons from observers with that of Lewis Hamilton in the GP2 Series at Istanbul in 2006, when the driver who would go on to become the youngest-ever F1 World Champion stormed through the field from well outside the top ten following an early mistake. That had only yielded the runner-up laurels, however – whereas Ash went one better still.
“I said to him on Saturday before the final, ‘Could you go a bit slower please because you’re making it boring’,” remarked FKS commentator Henry Beaudette, “but what Ash did on Sunday was anything but boring! It was one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time by anyone anywhere. It was precision overtaking at its finest. And on Easter Sunday too – what a day to choose to make a comeback...”
Joking apart, it was an awesome drive and one that both inarguably topped his 2009 Rowrah triumph and also represented a huge confidence boost ahead of the remainder of the season. Far from merely winning, Ash fairly blew them all away, and as he next returns to Rowrah for the second round of Super 1 targeting a repeat, and then heads to his ‘home’ circuit of Whilton Mill in Northants – scene of a stunning victory over the newly-crowned British Champion back in October at the end of a thrilling down-to-the-wire duel – for the second FKS meeting of 2010, can anybody halt Ash Hand’s winning streak..?
