Jack Hawksworth might not have given himself much odds of a good result following testing ahead of the 2010 curtain-raiser for the prestigious CIK-FIA European Championship at Sarno in southern Italy – but by dint of expertly ‘making his own luck’ when the heavens opened, he came away again with a superb podium finish and a genuine shot at lifting one of the most coveted crowns in international karting.
Competing this year for PDB Racing, the highly-rated young Bradford star admits that the Maddox chassis and new IAME engine the Dutch outfit is using are ‘a work in progress’ – and his campaign to-date has been one characterised by peaks and troughs, from the elation of a brilliant second place in the hotly-contested annual Trofeo Andrea Margutti, to the crushing disappointment of the opening two rounds of the WSK International Series at La Conca and Lonato, again in Italy.
Needing to get accustomed to the new Dunlop soft tyres stipulated by CIK-FIA regulations this year with scant prior testing time only threw another difficulty into the mix – ‘we just turned up and put the kart on the track’, Jack confessed, whilst many of his adversaries had enjoyed the luxury of pre-weekend running to gain more knowledge and experience of them – and reliability issues leading to a number of breakdowns throughout practice scarcely aided the 19-year-old’s cause any either, costing him vital learning and preparation time.
Worse still, with a 1km-long straight, Sarno is one of the most engine-reliant circuits on the European calendar – meaning the developing and still slightly breathless IAME powerplant was inevitably going to be up against it.
“We struggled in the full dry conditions in testing and knew we weren’t fast enough,” Jack acknowledged. “Sarno has some really long straights, and in the dry you really need to have good power there – but we were lacking both power and torque, which meant we didn’t have the necessary straight-line speed or acceleration out of the corners. It wasn’t a disaster, but equally we were never in a position to be running inside the top five or six.
“As the weekend went on, we worked on the chassis and gradually got used to the tyres – I think we did the best job we could in the short amount of time we had available to learn them. We had quite a few problems during the meeting with degradation and graining. We were wearing the tyres out quite quickly, and that was all really due to a lack of previous testing time. Morale was quite low as a result of that, and we didn’t actually expect to do as well as we did in qualifying when I pulled a really good lap out of the bag for ninth.”
Just over six tenths off the outright pace, P9 out of the 26 KZ1 class competitors – the indisputable crème de la crème of international gearbox karting talent – was a magnificent effort, and his opening two heat races yielded a sixth and an eighth place, in the first of them barely two seconds adrift of the winner. The Cullingworth speed demon was subsequently running sixth in heat three as well, only for a cracked exhaust to result in a failure to finish.
Had he only taken the chequered flag in the position he was in when forced to retire, Jack would have begun the first of the all-important finals from third. As it was, he was down in 13th – unlucky for some, perhaps, but then when the heavens opened the Yorkshire ace recognised that he had a golden opportunity to make some luck of his own.
“In the dry we knew we still didn’t have the pace,” he reflected, “but then about half an hour before the race a few spots of rain started to come down, and suddenly the whole situation changed, because anything can happen in the wet. I was excited by that, because I knew we could make a difference in those conditions if we could find the grip quicker than everyone else.
“I made a good start and was then able to come through the field really well. It’s all about keeping cool and calm and not making any mistakes when the weather is like that, and we got the job done. We made the right decisions on set-up and everything seemed to come together, and all credit to the whole team for that – they were fantastic. Second place was an absolutely unbelievable result – one of my best races ever! Twenty points was a really good start to the European Championship, and much better than we had expected.”
After shaking off some initial pursuers following an early tussle, Jack settled into a comfortable P2 and ultimately crossed the finish line just under five seconds shy of the winner. With the elements as ever proving to be the greatest of levellers, his seamless racecraft was able to shine through the spray – though with the track later drying out again, the second final was always going to be something of an exercise in damage limitation.
“We knew we were going to struggle,” he conceded, “so for me the most important thing was to get as many points as possible – because even though we didn’t have the pace here, we might have better pace at Varennes. The race was hard because I knew I didn’t have the speed to keep the others behind me. I didn’t fight too hard because that would only have cost me more time and dropped me even further back – and in the circumstances I think we did the best job possible. To finish ninth and score some more points was really, really good.”
Varennes is the venue for the second and final round of the 2010 CIK-FIA European Championship in late June, and the 2009 Margutti Trophy winner will head there buoyed by his strong previous form around the sweeping mid-France circuit with PDB two years ago, when he charged through the order from an uncharacteristically lowly 28th in qualifying in the KZ2 class to the bottom step of the rostrum in the first final, and gutsily snatched the lead early on in the second final only to be unceremoniously punted out of contention shortly afterwards.
With high expectations of gaining ground on the two drivers ahead of him in the points standings through a combination of hard work, greater experience of the tyres and improvements on the engine side, Jack is adamant that nothing is beyond the realms of possibility – and as his rivals will no doubt be all-too aware, he is only going to get stronger.
“We were unlucky to come away with nothing from Lonato WSK,” he concluded, “because the circuit did suit us and we had quite good speed there. I was glad we were able to make up for that disappointment at Sarno. Going into the weekend, realistically I had been aiming for the top ten in both finals; I wasn’t expecting to come out of the weekend third in the championship – I couldn’t believe that!
“Varennes is a track I really enjoy, and it’s fast and flowing which means you need good power again. We are there or thereabouts on tight, twisty tracks, but as soon as we go to faster circuits like Sarno and La Conca we struggle for torque – that’s where we are losing out at the moment. Hopefully we can now develop the engine and chassis before Varennes; we need to really knuckle down, do some testing, learn more about the tyres and engine and make some progress.
“We did a really good job at Sarno, and it would be a shame to throw that all away in France. Everything is open and it’s all still to play for. You make your own luck at the end of the day, and if any chance comes along to do the unexpected, we will always take it. I’m confident all the hard work will pay off in the end.”
