Whilst he still has a handful of karting outings remaining before he makes the transition for good, Jordan King will reach a milestone in his burgeoning career – appropriately enough at the celebrated ‘Home of British Motor Racing’ itself, Silverstone – when he takes to the track for his competitive debut in cars in the 2010 Formula Palmer Audi (FPA) finale.
The highly-rated young Warwickshire star has been one of the leading names in karting on both home and international shores for the past few years, with some of the many highlights amongst his impressive achievements including claiming the coveted Kartmasters ‘GP’ plate last season, CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific Championship glory later the same year and the runner-up laurels in the fiercely-contested Super 1 Series in 2008.
Off the back of a series of standout performances again in Britain and Europe in 2010, Jordan is now preparing to shift things up a gear, and to that end he will join the big boys in FPA’s title-deciding outing over the weekend of 16/17 October.
A toe-in-the-water exercise ahead of a planned full-on car racing campaign in 2011, the Harbury-based hotshot has some prior experience of Silverstone’s National Circuit layout from a brief run in a Lotus Exige, and he has also tried out one of the 170mph, 300bhp-plus FPA single-seaters before, confessing that he found it ‘totally different’ to the Formula Renault and Formula Ford machines that he has similarly tested.
“I feel like I’ve got to the right stage now to move on,” revealed the 16-year-old Princethorpe College student, “but equally, I’m under no illusions about how tough it’s going to be. Any step up from karts into cars is always massive, due to the size, the power, everything really. Karting teaches you all the racecraft you need, but everything else in cars is just so different.
“It will be a big jump, and I think the gears and standing-starts will be the hardest thing to learn and adjust to, as well as the ‘power boost’ button they have in FPA – but I feel ready for it and comfortable in a car already. During testing I have made good progress, learned a lot and matured as a driver, so I think the key will be to just stay focussed.
“I haven’t given too much thought to how strong the opposition will be, to be honest, and I’m not going to set myself any targets as such. The others have had pretty much a whole season in the car already, but I’d like to be able to race against some of them. It will all depend on how quickly I get to grips with everything, how consistent I can be and how well I perform. It’s very much a learning curve, but I’m feeling confident and really looking forward to it.”
