Jordan King has ensured that he will go into the 2013 British Formula Three International Series season finale as the man to beat in the chase for the coveted crown, after storming into the championship lead following a consistently strong showing in the penultimate meeting at Brands Hatch.

King headed to the legendary Brands Hatch GP Circuit trailing arch-rival Will Buller in the title standings by 21 pointsand firmly focussed on substantially reducing that deficit. Dominating Friday practice sent out an early signal of intent.

We knew we needed to make inroads into Bullers advantage, acknowledged the talented young Warwickshire ace. That was our main goal for the weekend, and I felt positive we could take some good points out of him because I had the car underneath me and weve generally had the measure of him this year in terms of raw speed.

Its always enjoyable to race around Brands GP layout, too; its an ex-F1 circuit with some really fast, blind corners and its just mega to drive. Its a track right out of the old-school, and a genuine challenge.

After posting an impressive early benchmark straight out-of-the-box, King paced the field for much of the qualifying session, but he was unable to extract the same performance out of his second set of tyres and consequently found himself narrowly pipped to pole position by guesting team-mate Jazeman Jaafar, a driver with three years of F3 experience under his belt and the 2012 championship runner-up.

Whilst that was evidently a source of disappointment and meant the highly-rated Stoneleigh-based hotshot would begin races one and three from the outside of the front row of the grid in his Carlin-prepared, Volkswagen-powered Dallara single-seater, more significantly, he was five spots in front of Bullerand the best part of a second faster.

I got a good start in race one and pulled alongside Jaz, but he defended quite aggressively into the first corner so I had to back out of it, he related. After that, I stuck to his tail and stayed within a couple of car-lengths of him for practically the whole race, but I could never quite get near enough to launch an attack.

There were a number of occasions where I got close to him going through Paddock Hill Bend, but then I would pick up massive understeer in his dirty air and lose grip. I backed off several times to try to gain fastest lap, but I was always right on him again within a couple of tours.

Keeping Jaafar honest throughout and taking the chequered flag less than half-a-second shy of victory, his frustrated efforts to find a way past were symptomatic of a tight-and-twisty circuit around which it is famously difficult to overtake in the absence of a mistake from the driver ahead or a sizeable speed differential.

Still, the runner-up spoils represented very useful points indeed towards the championshipparticularly with Buller managing no better than sixthand race two yielded an extremely solid fourth place from seventh on the reversed grid. The third and final outing would subsequently concretise Kings extraordinary transformation from leading F3 rookie to champion-in-waiting.

I got another very good start to edge alongside Jaz, but he just ran me out of road again, recounted the McLaren Autosport Award finalist, British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC) SuperStar and MSA Academy member. He opened up nearly a three-second gap to begin with, but then I was able to get the hammer down and haul him back in. Later on, we had to manoeuvre our way through lapped traffic, which almost gave me the opportunity I was looking forbut try as I might, I couldnt quite make a move stick.

Snaring the extra point on offer for fastest lap, Kings second podium finish of the weekend and sixth from nine career British F3 races enabled him to vault from 21 points in arrears of Buller to ten points clear, retaining his composure magnificently as his chief competitor endured an error-strewn weekend.

There is just one meeting remaining nowa high-stakes title showdown at the iconic Nrburgring in Germany in late Septemberand three drivers are realistically still in the hunt for glory. One of them will join the likes of Jim Clark, Sir Jackie Stewart and Ayrton Senna in seeing their name engraved upon one of the most prestigious trophies in international motorsportand the 19-year-old Hugo Boss brand ambassador is determined that it will be him.

Brands Hatch was a very satisfying weekend, King concluded. Our pace was pleasing, and the outcome certainly exceeded our expectations. This is the first time Ive led the championship and Im definitely happier going into the last round holding the upper hand, but it will be vital to maintain our current momentum at the Nrburgring and not take any unnecessary risks. Its going to be an interesting battle and this is where it really gets serious, but Ive been in high-pressure situations before, so Im confident I can handle it.