Ash Hand has not enjoyed much good fortune in the British Super 1 Series in 2010, but in the last meeting of the campaign at Three Sisters near Wigan, Lady Luck finally deigned to smile upon the highly-rated young Nuneaton karting star, and allowed him to do what he has been threatening to do all year – wipe the floor with the opposition.
Ash has proven nigh-on unbeatable in fellow national championship Formula Kart Stars (FKS) this season, with a magnificent eight triumphs from ten starts to-date, but such results have proven frustratingly elusive in Super 1. Until now.
“I knew I could go there and win,” the 16-year-old affirmed, alluding to his peerless double victory at the same circuit in FKS a fortnight earlier. “I like the track and it’s fun to drive, but the long straights make it hard to lead at because the others can always catch you up by working together and dragging each other along. Still, in FKS I had been able to break the tow and pull out a gap on both days, so that gave me a confidence boost. I knew I had the kart underneath me to do the job, so the goal was clearly to win again.”
A ‘poor’ qualifying session in which power issues left Ash struggling to stay in the tow – so pivotal to lap time at Three Sisters – degenerated into ‘a bit of a nightmare’, as the Maple Park teenager wound up only 11th amongst the 44 Junior Max class entrants, the indisputable crème de la crème of homegrown talent at that level.
Moreover, he discovered upon returning to the pits afterwards that he had been running 7kg overweight – and with every two kilograms calculated to be worth in the region of a tenth of a second, that would inarguably have made all the difference as he wound up just a quarter-of-a-second shy of the outright benchmark.
Undeterred, though, and with his optimism still high as he focussed his efforts on finding the missing speed and putting together a strategy to move forward in his two heat races, Ash took the chequered flag a strong third in the opening encounter and then matched that later on in the second, with fastest lap to his credit only going to underline his potential.
“I dropped down to the bottom of the top ten initially, but then I just turned it on and we came through like we were on fire,” related the North Warwickshire College student. “Every single lap was consistently quick, and it was pretty easy to pass people, break the tow and then pull away. That put me back where I needed to be for the finals.”
Indeed, his brace of results hauled Ash firmly back into the hunt and left him P4 on the grid for the first of the two finals – now palpably with the pace to make the most of it, though facing the disadvantage of being on the unfavourable outside line.
“I fell down to eighth at the start, but after my form in the second heat I knew I had the speed to come through,” he acknowledged. “The tyre pressures took a little while to come on, but I knew we would be quick so I just had to stay patient – and on lap six I suddenly went from being three tenths off to setting the pace! Once the kart came on like that, we were just rapid and I came through really fast. I out-braked the two leaders with three laps to go and then just had to defend to keep them behind me. I was very happy with that.
“The second final started quite smoothly, and I was able to break away initially and build up a gap. Jack Marshall caught me up after a little bit, and every lap I could see the shadow of his kart behind me so I knew he was always right there. Sean Babington joined in later, too, and we all had a good fight over the lead, but I just managed to drop them both towards the end and edge away slightly. It was all a question of making sure I kept my head, stuck to the right lines and braked in the right places.”
That much is all second nature to a competitor of Ash’s undeniable calibre, and all of the trials and tribulations that he has had to endure in Super 1 this year only served to make the taste of victory all-the-sweeter, he reflected. Up against the very fastest drivers that the country has to offer, courtesy of a truly sublime performance, the P1 Racing/CRG ace beat the best in Britain twice during the course of the same day.
“It’s been a really tough year in Super 1 for various reasons,” he conceded. “We’ve had wheels fall off, been smashed off the track, just problem-after-problem – but we’ve always been on the pace, and it was really good to get a win at last. It just all seemed to come alive this weekend, and it was pretty perfect all-round.
“I was extremely pleased with the result. We’ve been winning consistently in FKS, but this just proves we can win in both British championships, and that means a lot to me. The last round is always the best one to win, too, because it’s the one people remember and talk about over the winter.”
That much is indisputable, and off the back of a timely injection of confidence, the ‘King of Doubles’ – having now notched up no fewer than five double victories in 2010 – is looking to add one more to his season tally in the FKS finale at Ellough Park Raceway in Suffolk this weekend.
Having triumphed in the 2009 FKS curtain-closer at Whilton Mill – defeating the newly-crowned champion in a thrilling, no-holds barred duel – this time around it is Ash who stands on the precipice of title glory in the same series as first set a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track towards future F1 superstardom, and one that now boasts the prestigious official backing of both the sport’s youngest-ever world champion and also its influential ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone. He doesn’t even need to score particularly highly at Ellough to seal the deal, but then, the one thing that the Warwickshire speed demon is and always will be, is a racer through-and-through.
“I’m going there aiming to win,” he asserts. “What’s the point in just cruising around for points when we’ve got the pace to win?”
It is, after all, what Ash has been doing all year...
