Jordan King took what he described as ‘a big step forward’ in the third outing of the 2011 Formula Renault UK Championship at Thruxton, by vying for pole position in qualifying and battling for the podium in both races.
Jordan headed to the high-speed Hampshire circuit in confident spirits, and keen to rev his maiden campaign of car racing firmly into life after tallying a best starting and finishing position of sixth from the opening two rounds. Having displayed flashes of genuine potential at Brands Hatch and Donington Park, the talented young Warwickshire star would really accelerate things up through the gears at Thruxton, with what was by far his most competitive weekend in Formula Renault UK to-date.
“We had been quick there in testing, so I was feeling pretty happy with everything and aiming to get a couple of decent results out of the weekend – because we haven’t really had any yet this season!” he quipped. “I love the circuit, mainly because it’s just so fast – you’re doing about 155mph down the back straight with quite a bit of grip, and it’s the first track we’ve been to this year where overtaking is really possible if you get a good run on the driver ahead. It’s perfect for Formula Renault UK.”
Lapping an outstanding second-quickest in both practice sessions proved that Jordan had the pace to be right up at the sharp end of the action – and he carried that superb form over into the race weekend itself, even if his efforts in qualifying would be scuppered by an errant rival.
“On my last lap in session one, I was quickest through the first sector and it was all looking good,” the 17-year-old recalled. “I only had the final chicane to go and I would have been on pole, but Olly Rowland had spun and stopped at the exit of it, and with the yellow flags out, I had to lift off and go round him, which cost me three tenths of a second.”
The data bore witness to the fact that had Jordan been able to complete the lap, he would have been comfortably on pole position; as it was, he just missed out by a scant six hundredths of a second, what he acknowledged was ‘very positive’ and ‘a massive confidence boost’, if understandably ‘extremely annoying’ at the same time. Race one would follow a not dissimilar pattern.
“I made a good start and got around the outside of the pole-sitter, Alex Lynn, but then I had a problem with the gearbox shifting up from fourth to fifth, which cost me a bit of time,” related the Stoneleigh-based speed demon. “I lost half-a-car’s length, which allowed Lynn to edge back alongside me and left me on the outside for the first chicane, and with Tio Ellinas following Alex line-astern right behind, I had nowhere to tuck into and slipped to third.
“I then got a really good run on Ellinas going down the back straight and pulled alongside, but he just sideswiped me onto the grass. That spun me round, and I came back onto the track facing the wrong way. It’s pretty scary having cars coming directly towards you at more than 150mph and I was just praying for no-one to hit me, and fortunately nobody did.”
With a damaged undertray on his Manor Competition single-seater, the BRDC Rising Star soldiered gamely on but was so far behind that he was never going to make any discernible progress in such a fiercely-competitive field. Confessing to being ‘very disappointed, given that we had been quick enough to get a podium at the very least’, the fact that his assailant got punished with points on his licence and a fine was in truth little consolation and did not give Jordan back what had been taken away from him.
Aiming to put it behind him in race two, the Princethorpe College student took the start from P5 after putting a wheel onto the grass on his fastest lap in the second qualifying session – and again, his raw speed was in evidence right from the word ‘go’.
“I moved up to third straightaway, which was good,” he recollected, “and shortly afterwards I got onto the back of Rowland in second and managed to pass him into the chicane – I went up the inside and ran him out wide on the exit – but then I just made a real schoolboy, amateur mistake and spun, which dropped me right down the order. Looking at the lap times afterwards, we were definitely quick enough to have held onto second place, and we may even have been able to challenge for the win...”
Just tenth at the chequered flag but with the third-best lap time to his name despite spending the rest of the race fighting through traffic, Jordan might have berated his ‘schoolboy’ error, but then it is easy to forget given his rapid acceleration up through the motor racing ranks that he is still just a schoolboy, and indubitably one of the least experienced drivers on the 2011 Formula Renault UK grid.
With that in-mind, his development thus far has been truly remarkable, and as he assures that he will not be making the same kind of mistake again, the Hugo Boss brand ambassador will head to the next meeting at Oulton Park in Cheshire buoyed by his form at Thruxton and eager to keep his impressive momentum going.
“It was another frustrating weekend in terms of results, but we had the pace to be on pole and to fight for the podium, which was a massive improvement over the previous couple of meetings,” he concluded. “It was a shame that we were unlucky in the first race and that I made the mistake in the second, but there were lots of positives, too. Everything came together at Thruxton – we all seemed to work in a much more structured manner inside the team, and we made progress all the way through. We definitely took a big step forward.”
