– and bids to ‘bring a trophy home’
Jordan King produced a strong performance to earn himself a safe passage through to the prestigious CIK-FIA European Championship Final during his qualifying round at PF International in Lincolnshire – and now he is bidding to confirm his status as an international front-runner on the karting stage by ‘bringing a trophy home’.
Some 57 competitors entered the Western region qualification round, composed of the very crème de la crème of young French, Portuguese, Swiss, Spanish, American, Republic of Ireland and British driving talent at KF2 level – and Jordan was under no illusions that the calibre would be high and the competition fierce.
“I knew who was quick and who would be up there,” the Warwickshire star confessed, “and I knew who I could trust, too, from having raced against most of them before! I’m usually fast around PF, so I was feeling quite confident going into the weekend.”
Ninth spot in qualifying – just under half a second shy of the ultimate benchmark – was a more-than-satisfactory outcome given that the changeable wet/dry weather conditions made things frustratingly unpredictable and turned set-up into a lottery of guesswork, and to compound that Jordan was not out in the fastest of the sessions. P9 secured the Harbury ace a second row starting slot for each of his four heat races – though in three of them he would be beginning from the outside line, quite a disadvantage at PF where drivers frequently get hung out to dry.
“In the first heat I got into the lead, but then I got passed at the second hairpin,” he recounted. “That forced me out a bit wide and left me with some dirt on my tyres, and it took me a couple of laps to scrub it off and get back on the pace again – by which time I had lost even more positions. It took a while for the kart to come on, but after that our pace wasn’t too bad.”
Nonetheless, eighth place was a solid start, and a best lap time within three tenths of the quickest outright proved that Jordan was closing in. A power valve issue in heat two subsequently restricted him to a hard-fought seventh at the chequered flag – an impressive exercise in damage limitation – before a change of engine for his last two heats transformed his Energy kart and enabled the 16-year-old to storm to a brace of superb runner-up spots, less than two seconds adrift of victory on each occasion.
Comfortably progressing to the next day placed seventh out of the 34 successful contenders and boosted by his much-improved pace, Jordan headed into Sunday’s finals needing only to finish inside the top 26 overall to make it through to the European Final at Genk in Belgium in July. Despite some ‘crazy driving’ by a number of his rivals, he would do so with aplomb.
“I got up to sixth at the start, but the front group were slowly edging away,” he recalled of the first final, “and then Alex Walker crashed into me at the first hairpin. I ended up 15th as a result of that, which put the pressure on a little bit more for the second final, whereas if I’d been seventh or eighth I would have already been safe regardless of where I finished later on. That was disappointing, but I just had to take it on the chin.
“I was aiming for a decent result in the second final, because I didn’t want to go through with a best finish of 15th – but equally I knew a top 20 would be enough, so I was feeling quite calm about it still. I got up to fifth at the first start, but then the race was red-flagged because there was carnage further back in the pack.
“There was some crazy driving out there, but it’s all a percentage game. Some people were being really silly and pushing hard all the way through – and that ruined a lot of other drivers’ weekends. I didn’t really understand it, because there was no need for that kind of approach. Luckily, I managed to keep out of it all.
“At the re-start I came out of the second hairpin in fourth, but then my engine cut out briefly which cost me a few places. That dropped me down to tenth, but we were as quick as the leaders after that and came back through to seventh. I was happy with the pace we had by the end of the weekend.”
Concluding proceedings an excellent eighth, Jordan did exactly what he had needed to do, mindful – clearly unlike some of his adversaries – of the fact that risking it all to triumph in a qualifying meeting would be pointless, given that the prizes will only be awarded in two months’ time.
What’s more, Genk is a circuit around which the Repton School pupil has always excelled, with pole positions and podiums – including one in the WSK International Series last year, when he scythed his way magnificently through the spray to recover from an early knock that had left him stone last to a superb third at the flag, lapping a full second out of reach of anybody else in treacherously wet conditions. Having made improvements on the power front ahead of the ‘warm-up’ WSK outing there this weekend, he is heading cross-Channel with high hopes.
“I like the track,” enthused the JRP-run speed demon. “It’s quite fast and flowing and a real drivers’ circuit – fun and challenging at the same time. If we keep on working hard and can make another step forward before Genk, hopefully we can be right up there at the front.
“Obviously I’d like to win, because we haven’t had great results so far this year. We’ve had a bit of bad luck engine-wise, so it would be nice to show that I can actually compete at the front and am capable of winning – and a good performance this weekend would send out a marker for the European Final as well. I just want to be up there again, score some decent points and get back in the game – and I’d like to bring a trophy home too...”
