as he revs up for ‘the big one’
Jack Hawksworth produced a dogged performance to sign off his 2010 DKM Championship campaign with a podium finish at Hahn, and now the highly-rated young Bradford karting star is bidding to claim a similar result in what he refers to as ‘the big one’ – the prestigious CIK-FIA World Cup at Braga in Portugal.
The only British driver competing in the German series amongst seven different nationalities from all four corners of the globe, Jack initially struggled during practice around the circuit close to Frankfurt, uncharacteristically lapping more than a second adrift of the leading pace.
He would, however, go on to narrow that gap significantly, and come qualifying the Cullingworth-based hotshot was less than four hundredths of a second away from the benchmark in the 24-strong field, which earned him a superb second position as he missed out on the top spot by a mere whisker.
“Hahn is very fast with a nice layout, but it’s a very difficult track because it’s extremely bumpy, which makes it really physical,” he explained. “You’ve got to be completely on your game fitness-wise round there, otherwise it really punishes you. We struggled in Friday practice – we didn’t really have the speed, but we worked really hard on the kart and found out where the problems were.”
Confident for his two heat races, Jack unfortunately found that putting old tyres onto his Maddox chassis adversely affected its handling, and second and fourth places were a perfect lesson in effective damage limitation as he mused that he had been missing two tenths in terms of lap time – costly indeed in a pack as closely-fought as it was.
That left the 19-year-old to begin the pre-final from fourth, and whilst still lacking the outright speed he needed to challenge for victory, to take the chequered flag in the same spot just a second shy of the rostrum and less than four seconds off the winner was an admirable effort.
“I made an excellent start, but then Jorrit Pex ahead of me bogged down off the line, which meant I had to get off the gas and couldn’t take advantage of it,” rued the PDB Racing ace. “I consequently didn’t manage to make up any places into the first corner and after that we lacked grip, with big understeer problems. I stayed fourth for the whole race, and although I was under a bit of pressure from behind, I just had enough to keep in front.
“For the grand final everybody had new tyres on, and for the first few laps everything felt really good. I got past Pex for third, and for a while I was as quick as Paolo de Conto and Manu Renaudie in front and really keeping tabs on them. After that, though, they were just unbelievably fast – I’ve never seen anything like it. Maybe they had found a better set-up than we had – they clearly had a significant advantage over the rest of the field in that race.
“They pulled out a huge gap over me and of course I’d have wanted to be a lot closer than that, but I was able to pull out a big gap over Pex too, and I was happy in the end to be up on the podium – it was my third podium in the DKM this year, and if you finish on the podium it can’t be a bad weekend. We just missed out on third in the championship, but I think fourth was very reasonable for our first year on the Maddox.”
Indeed, Jack had to beat a lot of big names in order to do so, and winding up just five points off third place in the title race was no mean feat at all for what was always billed as a ‘learning year’. Now turning his attentions towards the last remaining date on his 2010 calendar, the recently-crowned Kartmasters Champion is bullish about his prospects and bidding to significantly improve upon his only previous outing at Braga – his first-ever European appearance all the way back in 2004, when he ran impressively inside the top ten prior to contact.
“That’s the big one, and I’m really looking forward to it,” he acknowledged. “I remember really liking the track, that it’s good fun, quite technical and has a really nice, fast left-right at the end of the straight – but I don’t remember too much else about it.
“I think we’ve hopefully got a decent chance, especially with two days of testing beforehand, but the goals will depend on the conditions; I always aim to get the maximum out of the weekend and to take advantage of whatever comes my way. Whatever is available – whether it’s first place, sixth or 12th – that’s what we will try to achieve.
“I’ll just aim to do the best I can, and with it being a one-off meeting, anything can happen. All the top guys and ‘household names’ will be there, so the competition will be tough and it’s the end of the European season too, so it would be really nice to go out with a bang...”
