sees him home right in on championship lead
He had been threatening it for quite some time, truth be told, but that only went to make Ryan Anderton’s breakthrough success on the British karting stage all-the-sweeter, as the highly-rated Somerset speed demon produced a sublime performance to triumph in the second round of the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship at Three Sisters near Wigan.
Invariably on the front-running pace but having been frustrated by a variety of misfortunes in FKS’ 2011 curtain-raiser at Rowrah and in the opening two meetings of fellow national series Super 1, Ryan headed north to Wigan sitting tenth in the 48-strong MSA British Cadet class title standings – the veritable crème de la crème of young driving talent in the country.
“I just wanted to relax and not put too much pressure on myself,” he explained. “We were there or thereabouts in practice, and after that we knew we were in with a chance of winning. I enjoy Three Sisters as a circuit; it’s fun to drive, and with the tow being so important round there, you can’t really break away in Cadets unless there’s proper teamwork – you’ve got to have complete trust in each other.”
In Saturday’s qualifying session, Ryan unfortunately found himself out on-track at the wrong point and – unlike the vast majority of his rivals – unable to take advantage of that crucial tow, leaving the Glastonbury-based hotshot eighth in his group, albeit only 15 hundredths of a second shy of the benchmark. He would fight back brilliantly in his two heat races.
“In the first one, the top two broke away and I got into the second pack,” he recounted. “Josh Smith was pushing me and we were catching and catching and catching, but because we were dragging another driver along with us, too, I had to defend on the last lap; if I hadn’t had to do that, I could maybe have challenged the two leaders. Third was still a very solid result, though.
“In the second heat, I just picked my moment right to take the lead and took another driver with me who I knew was strong. I knew I had the pace and the momentum, and he pushed me away until we had a comfortable margin over the others. We worked well together, and when I looked behind, there was a big gap back to third.”
Expertly holding off his pursuer to triumph, allied to his third place from the previous encounter, the combination of results was enough to earn Ryan P3 on the starting grid for the all-important final.
“I made an early break with my team-mate Dan Ticktum, and we pulled a long way clear of the field,” recalled the Fusion Motorsport star. “I led for most of the race and defended well, but then on the last lap, I couldn’t slow the kart down enough on the apex of one of the corners; that allowed Dan to get a good slingshot at me into the next corner, and he took the lead.
“After that, there was no way back, but second was still my best-ever result at national level and a lot of championship points, which we really needed – so that was quite a relief! Yes, I could have won, but I learned my lesson for the next day...”
The pair’s frenetic pace carried them a staggering 8.6 seconds clear of the chasing pack – a veritable eternity in Cadet terms – and Ryan missed out on the top step of the podium by a scant two hundredths of a second.
In determinedly admitting that ‘after coming so close, I was really fired-up to beat Dan and get my revenge’ on day two, the St. Dunstan’s Community School pupil’s words reveal that although it is a friendly rivalry between team-mates and friends, it is a rivalry nonetheless – and fourth spot in qualifying on Sunday marked an immediate improvement.
“In the first heat, I made a break with my team-mates Will Taylforth and Josh Smith,” Ryan went on. “We worked together to keep pushing ourselves away from the rest, and we established a big advantage. I had learned that it’s best not to lead going onto the last lap in Cadets, so later in the race, I let them both past me and dropped back to third. I kept a short distance behind to try to lull them into a false sense of security, and then when they began battling and made slight contact on the last lap, I was able to get the switchback on them both.”
It was a peerless performance that betrayed a maturity far beyond Ryan’s tender 11 years, and in a five-way tussle in heat two, he led for the majority of the race, defending where he needed to and even being afforded some welcome breathing space on the last lap as the battle behind him eased the pressure somewhat.
The key, once again, he reasoned, was to stay ‘relaxed’, and from pole position in the final, he was in front for all-bar three of the 21 laps – meaning he led for a total of 85 per cent of the weekend’s two finals. Embroiled in a four-way scrap for supremacy, he always looked to have proceedings under control and timed it to absolute perfection to reclaim the advantage.
“I knew we had a slight edge,” he confessed, “and on the last lap, I stopped on the apex of the corner where I had made the mistake and lost the lead in Saturday’s final; that meant the others had to push me off it, which cost them their speed and momentum. After that, I just had to defend to the flag. I kept my cool, and it all worked out! It felt so good to win, especially being FKS, and it was such a huge boost. After I crossed the line, I said to myself, ‘I’ve just won at national level, up against the toughest competition in the country!’”
Lesson learned, as he had promised, and Ryan could be justifiably proud of his performance – one that yielded a clean sweep of the silverware on Sunday and that has seen him vault from tenth to second in the chase for the coveted crown and close to within just a single point of the championship lead.
The West Country ace was incontrovertibly the class of the MSA British Cadet field at Three Sisters, and having broken his duck and finally been rewarded with the kind of result his potential so palpably deserved, he is right in the fight. Heading next to Glan Y Gors in North Wales – a circuit around which he has an excellent previous record – now that he has had a taste of winning, Ryan Anderton wants to do so again, and again, and again...
