Jordan’s invitation to the Principality came off the back of his outstanding triumph in the CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific KF3 Championship in Macau in October, when he overcame a crumbling track surface, torrential downpour and water-logged engine to quite literally rain on his rivals’ parade and storm to glory, lifting one of the most coveted laurels in the sport the world over. It was, he acknowledged, a seminal moment in his burgeoning career.

“Everything went right that weekend, from start-to-finish,” he recalled. “It was the best-prepared we had been all year, and the grand final was definitely a highlight of 2009 – and even of all my time in motorsport so far.

“Monaco is always special, and I enjoy going there – I’ve been to the grand prix before. The place has a lot of motorsport history and heritage behind it, and it was a really big event. I was one of only four drivers from all around the world in KF3 to win an award – and when you put that into words, it does sound pretty good!”

Indeed, only Dutchman Nyck de Vries, Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jnr – son of two-time World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz – and Italian Giuliano Maria Niceta joined Jordan as award recipients in the KF3 class at the star-studded gala, attended by new FIA President Jean Todt along with a number of other Formula 1 luminaries. The glitz and the glamour of the occasion might have been the fruit of his labours, but in order to get there the 15-year-old had to work hard indeed, and get the better of competitors with far more experience under their belts.

Proud of his accomplishment and rightly so – given that 2009 was his first season of overseas competition – Jordan concluded the campaign eighth in the fiercely-contested WSK International Series, a laudable feat by any standards, but one with which the Stuart Wright-run Harbury ace admits to being not altogether satisfied.

Following a superb start to his European challenge, with victory in the pre-final at Sarno in Italy and podium finishes at both Castelletto, again in Italy, and Genk in Belgium – on the latter occasion lapping a staggering 1.5 seconds faster than anyone else on the circuit as the heavens did their worst and he scythed his way back up the order following an early knock, forcing observers to truly sit up and take note – the momentum suddenly collapsed, with engine woes the principal issue.

“Back at the beginning of the year, if someone had told me I would finish eighth in WSK, I would have been happy with that,” Jordan acknowledged, “but given where we were midway through, I’m a bit disappointed, to be honest. It all started to go wrong after Genk. We were up in fourth in the championship, just 20 points off the lead and closing on the top three, and it was all looking set to be a really strong end to the season.

“At Salbris in France we qualified sixth for the final, which I was really pleased with, and then the engine packed up after only two laps. We just had the sense that we were trying our hardest but not getting anywhere. It was frustrating, because I knew we had the pace to be inside the top ten every time – and sometimes we weren’t even making the final.

“Looking on the positive side, though, I was the only rookie to win a pre-final or grand final, I got the most podiums for a rookie and for a Brit and I was the only rookie to finish on the podium – so that was all pretty good.”

To his immense credit – especially given that 2009 was only his fourth full year of competition – Jordan never once let his head drop and relentlessly kept on pushing, and whilst he was similarly out of luck in the finals of the European Championship, lapping within a tenth of the outright pace again confirmed both his form and potential.

On home turf, the Repton School pupil triumphed in the Kimbolton curtain-raiser for Formula Kart Stars – the same series as first set a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future F1 superstardom – following a tooth-and-nail race-long duel with the driver who would go on to become British Champion.

In fellow national series Super 1, meanwhile, Jordan concluded proceedings as the top scorer, but due to the intricacies of the points system, he was ultimately classified a frustrated and unrepresentative sixth, paying a heavy price for being the most consistent driver in the field. Had it been calculated as in Europe without dropped scores, he would have been vice-champion.

Still, he could comfort himself in the knowledge that he had beaten the very best in the country to lift the coveted Kartmasters trophy and ‘GP’ plate that accompanies it at PF International during the summer – and as he steps up a gear to the more powerful KF2 class for his karting swansong with his reputation now solidly established, the target is palpably to sign off in style.

“I’ve improved all-round I’d say, in every aspect of my driving,” he concluded. “You never stop learning and improving, and I want to move forward again in 2010. It would be good to move out of karting with a big title to my name, and then take that confidence on into cars.

“Back at the start of 2009, nobody really knew who I was in Europe, but after a year at the front now, hopefully there will be a different level of respect for me. If we can get a good start to the season and some good points early on, people will see that we’re there to win.”

Already one of Britain’s most exciting and promising karting prodigies, Jordan was invited to try out one of the 160mph F2 machines in Spain by Palmer, the man behind the re-launch of a prestigious championship that before 2009 had not taken to the tracks in a quarter of a century.

In its previous incarnation from 1967 to 1984, Formula Two had been won by such racing luminaries as Jacky Ickx, Clay Regazzoni, Ronnie Peterson, Patrick Depailler, Jacques Laffite and René Arnoux – men who between them went on to triumph in no fewer than 38 F1 grands prix.

Not remotely intimidated by being the youngest driver in attendance at just 15 – and, indeed, the youngest ever to drive an F2 car by more than two years – Jordan lapped in or around the top ten throughout the test, and even showed a clean pair of heels to a number of rivals with considerably more experience than him.

Impressing the F2 hierarchy with his speed, feedback and mature approach both in and out of the cockpit – belying the fact that he has been racing only four years – it was clear that the Repton School pupil had turned more than a few heads with his prowess under the Spanish sun, and few are more influential within the motor racing world than Formula Palmer Audi founder Palmer, who is also well-known to fans for his three-and-a-half year stint inside the F1 commentary box alongside the legendary Murray Walker.

“For a 15-year-old karter whose single-seater experience included just one day of FPA and Formula Renault testing, driving a 450bhp Formula Two car at Valencia was a huge jump,” the Englishman affirmed. “Jordan took it totally in his stride.

“He impressed everyone by learning rapidly and confidently to set amazing times, only one second off the front-runners in just two days’ testing. Jordan is clearly enormously talented – and likely to go far in his pursuit of an F1 drive.”

Though a full-time graduation from karting to cars may be a year away yet, each FIA Formula Two Champion will earn an automatic test outing with the Williams F1 team – meaning that break into the big-time might just be rather more than a pipe dream for Harbury’s resident speed demon. Watch this space, as they say.

Jordan is widely rated as one of Britain’s most exciting up-and-coming motorsport prospects, and this year he has ably demonstrated precisely why. Not only did he race to glory in the blue riband Kartmasters ‘GP’ outing at PF International, but he also lifted the laurels in the prestigious CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific Championship in Macau last month – and he has been a regular front-runner in the hotly-disputed WSK International Series season-long too, proving his mettle and holding his own in what is generally acknowledged to be the most fiercely competitive field in Europe.

What’s more, he has done so as a ‘rookie’ both at KF3 level and on the international scene, having only raced abroad for the first time barely 12 months ago. The 15-year-old headed into the last meeting of the 2009 WSK campaign – at Lonato in Italy – hopeful of a strong finish, but despite lapping right up at the sharp end throughout on his new Energy chassis, the traditional end-of-term over-exuberance of some of his adversaries contrived against him…

“I was really happy with my pace,” Jordan contended. “We were as quick as the leaders, and if we had been up at the front I think we would easily have been able to stay with them. That was really positive, especially taking into account that I had jumped into a new kart, which requires quite a different style of driving. It was my first time in it, and it took me a day to get used to it, I’d say – but after that we were rocking!”

Twentieth out of the 89 entrants in qualifying – a scant four tenths of a second shy of the top spot first time out on his new mount – was an encouraging way to begin, but seventh and eighth-place finishes in two of his heats were unfortunately undone when he found himself unwittingly used as a battering ram in the other two, leaving him with ‘nowhere to go’ as ‘carnage’ descended.

That left the Harbury ace facing a nervous wait to see if he would be one of the 28 competitors to graduate automatically to the finals later in the day or be forced to fight his way through in the ‘second-chance’ repêchage, unaccustomed territory for one of the WSK’s inarguable leading lights. Cruelly, he found himself 29th in the intermediate rankings, leaving him on pole position for the 36-strong repêchage at the end of which six drivers would go on to the finals, and 30 would go home disappointed.

Acknowledging that the pressure was on – ‘because you know you only have one chance’ – Jordan produced a flawlessly composed performance to lead from lights all the way to chequered flag, never far out of reach of the rest of the field, but equally never allowing anyone to get quite to within striking distance and breaking the spirit of his pursuers with a scintillating penultimate lap that sealed the deal.

A disastrous pre-final – when the Stuart Wright-run speed demon once again got shunted from behind on the opening lap following a lightning-fast getaway – left Jordan to begin the all-important grand final from 26th place, but by dint of a strong, consistent drive in the face of adversity, he battled his way grittily up through the order into 15th spot at the close to pinch the very last point of the season.

“I got another really good start and made up a lot of places on the first lap,” he recounted, “but then I got caught behind someone who had a broken axle, and because he was defending so much a lot of other drivers were able to latch onto the back of me. He finally went into the pits, but by then I had a whole train of karts behind, which made it a real fight.

“We got the last point on offer in the end, and whilst that was far from what we had gone to Lonato for, given where we had started and all the time we had lost early on in the race, I couldn’t be too unhappy with that. I was very happy with the kart, but just disappointed we couldn’t get the top five finish we’d been looking for.”

Ending the year eighth in the final points standings – and the second-highest placed of his countrymen, ahead of far more experienced campaigners including the 2008 British KF3 Champion – the status of top KF3 and European newcomer was a superb accomplishment. Not only was he one of only two rookies to win a final – from eighth on the grid at Sarno in Italy – but a brace rostrum finishes at Castelletto and Genk furthermore helped to mark Jordan out as one to watch.

“Genk was without doubt a massive highlight,” affirmed the Repton School pupil, “coming through from 30th to finish fifth. From fifth on the grid in the grand final I then got taken out at the first corner and sent down to last, and I came back through to third in the rain, lapping as much as a second-and-a-half quicker than anyone else on the track. To be that much faster than anyone else was pretty special; they actually cut the race short because of the weather, and had it run to its normal length I really believe I would have won.

“I’m happy with what we’ve achieved this year, winning Kartmasters and the CIK-FIA Asia-Pacific KF3 Championship, and with my performances in WSK – top rookie I think is pretty good for my first season. The only aspect I’m disappointed about is that at one stage earlier on in the year it was looking like we’d be able to finish inside the top three in the championship or even challenge for the title, but we then had some bad luck and it just went away from us.

“It’s definitely been a learning curve, and I’ve learned a lot. My driving and racecraft have both improved, I now know the tracks in Europe – even when I’ve had bad weekends and difficult situations I’ve learned from them – and really every area in which it has been possible to improve I think I’ve done so.”

As he now prepares to raise the bar yet further and move things up a gear by graduating to the more powerful KF2 class in 2010, a more experienced, wiser and unquestionably devastatingly fast Jordan King insists he is ready to ‘do the business’. His rivals would do well to take note.

Jordan headed to Fulbeck in Lincolnshire for the first time sitting third in the title standings in what is widely acknowledged to be the most closely-fought and keenly-contested championship in Britain. Whilst he would soon get to grips with the track, he admitted to not being its greatest fan – “it’s not very wide and has very high kerbs, and not much variety with just four chicanes and a couple of hairpins really,” he reasoned – making third place in qualifying out of the 26 entrants an impressive achievement.

Indeed, the KF3 class in which he competes has been tight all year, but at Fulbeck it was especially so, with a mere tenth of a second blanketing the nine quickest qualifiers. Jordan was a scant two hundredths shy of the top spot, but a rough-and-tumble start in the first heat and an assault from behind in the second that saw him plummet down to last resulted in just seventh and eighth-place finishes.

“Pace-wise we were as quick as anyone,” the 15-year-old mused, “just a tenth off the best of the race. It’s not an easy track to overtake on, but I was able to climb back up the order quite well, and it was good fun fighting my way through.”

Strong pace and determined progress in the pre-final earned Jordan third at the chequered flag, meaning he would begin the all-important grand final later in the day well in contention. And he would waste little time in making his intentions clear.

“I took the lead early on for five laps,” the Harbury ace recalled. “I thought we might be able to stay there, but I couldn’t hold Callum Bowyer off and he got past me and just managed to edge away a bit by a few hundredths every lap. Then the group behind began to catch me too and got onto the back of me; it was hard to fight them off, and I ended up finishing fourth. It was frustrating not to get a podium in the last round of the season, but ultimately we just weren’t quite quick enough.”

Even more frustrating still was the revelation after all the final scores had been counted that but for the dropped points system that Super 1 employs – whereby each driver has to ditch his or her four best results of the season – Jordan would have comfortably been champion. From 13 outings, the Stuart Wright-run speed demon missed the top ten only once, and made the top six on no fewer than eight occasions.

“That was really annoying,” he confessed. “I think the scoring system should definitely be changed, because it just doesn’t reward consistency – it punishes it instead. You’re better off winning one round and then finishing last in the next one, because you’ll lose fewer points by dropping that than by dropping a fifth or a sixth place.

“We’ve been consistently inside the top six pretty much all year, whereas some others have been far more up-and-down and yet ended up finishing ahead, and I don’t really think that’s fair on drivers like me. Overall it’s been a good season for my first year in KF3, though, and I’ve learned a lot. I feel I’ve achieved quite a lot for a ‘rookie’.”

That he incontrovertibly has, and as he now prepares for the last meeting of his KF3 career – in the WSK International Series finale at Lonato near Garda in Italy at the beginning of next month – Jordan is fired-up to conclude 2009 on a high. Having proven to be quick but out of luck in his only previous outing there in the Winter Cup, the Repton School pupil knows he needs to put a two-round non-scoring run firmly behind him and reclaim the honour of top Brit in what is arguably the toughest competition in the world – and a return to the rostrum is firmly in his sights.

“It’s still really close in the championship from fourth down to eighth,” he acknowledged, “so anyone can still get up there. Lonato is a circuit I enjoy, so I just want to go out and do my best and see how it all unfolds. I really need a decent result there, and a podium would be a great way to end the year.”

Jordan travelled to the Far Eastern Portuguese enclave for the first time bidding to put a run of recent bad luck behind him – but well aware that in going up against drivers of the calibre of reigning World Cup winner Guiliano Niceta and a whole host of other leading protagonists from the hotly-contested WSK International Series, he would be facing no easy task.

Still, he wasted little time in rapidly getting to grips with a demanding circuit situated in what he described as a ‘pretty amazing’ place, and eased to pole position in qualifying by just over seven hundredths of a second – even if problems with the track surface were causing it to break up and rendered it slippery and dusty in the extreme.

“I was thinking I had as good a chance as anyone else, if everything went right,” mused the 15-year-old, “but I never thought it would go quite as well as it actually did. Qualifying was quite tight, with only a tenth in it really – but the difference was that whilst I could do those times consistently every single lap, the others could only do it once every five laps or so.

“The circuit has a bit of everything really – a decent-length straight, a flat-out first corner followed by a tricky hairpin, then a flat-out right-hander followed by two hairpins which make up the most important part of the track, which it’s really hard to get right lap-after-lap. Then there’s a chicane, and in the last sector the kart felt really good and I was very quick. The problem was, with the way it was breaking up, if someone overtook you and you didn’t give the position up and got forced off-line, you lost about 20 kart-lengths.”

Luckily for Jordan, nobody was overtaking him very much at all, but racing was suspended before the KF3 heats had even got underway due to the ever-deteriorating state of the track. With a considerable degree of uncertainty regarding just what was likely to happen – and if the event would even be able to resume at all – the competitors endured a nervous wait before new concrete was hastily laid down for the following day.

Mentally draining as that may have been, the Harbury ace dealt with it all flawlessly, and he came out of the blocks fighting again on Sunday to seamlessly triumph in both of his heats, by a staggering four seconds in the first of them as he proved to be the only driver in the field capable of lapping beneath the 53-second barrier.

“We were thinking, ‘what are we going to do if they change the track and we’re not as fast anymore due to that?’” he confessed, “but I just concentrated on my driving and on doing the best job I could.”

A similarly untouchable performance in the pre-final – winning by almost four seconds again – earned Jordan pole position for the all-important, 21-lap grand final, shortly before which the heavens opened with a real vengeance. With the rain invariably being a great leveller and encouraging true talent to really shine through, all the omens were looking good – but then an oversight that saw the carburettor on his Maranello kart wrongly set provided an unwelcome pre-race scare, led to the Repton School pupil having to manually adjust the jets himself as he drove around…and very nearly caused late heartbreak.

“At that point I thought it was going to be such a hard race,” he acknowledged. “We hadn’t been out in the one wet session we’d had during practice, but usually I’m very good in the wet, so I knew I was going to be there or thereabouts. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the lines, so just before the race I was thinking about that and trying to visualise the lap in my head.

“On the rolling-up lap I tried a couple of different lines and found out a bit more – it was a real trial-and-error approach – and really I worked it out from there. I just got my head down and put some really consistent laps in – after the race my mechanic Stu told me I had done three consecutive laps at exactly the same time.

“It was raining quite heavily to begin with, with a couple of puddles here and there, but halfway through it started really chucking it down and I was able to pull away even more. I was leading by seven seconds when water started to get into the engine with about five laps to go, so after that I just slowed down and cruised around to be safe – the engine was getting worse and worse throughout the race, and I was just thinking ‘please don’t break!’ When the chequered flag came out it was quite a relief…”

Difficult enough to be so consistent in the dry, to produce the kind of performance he did in the wet was a superb effort, as Jordan pulled off another lights-to-flag success – and completed a full house of fastest laps – that allowed him to add to his Kartmasters glory from earlier in the year with another major karting trophy. Making a point of thanking his mechanic Stuart Wright, team owner Mark Berryman and engine-supplier GFR for all of their support, it was a truly magnificent way in which to banish his run of ill-fortune.

“Everything that could have been right over the weekend was right,” he enthused in conclusion. “The chassis and engine were both perfect, and the whole package just felt really balanced.

“There are four big international karting events everyone wants to win during the year, and the Asia-Pacific is one of them. I can’t really put into words how it feels to have done that – it’s just amazing! Given the prestige of the event, it’s definitely the biggest and best win I’ve ever had. It hasn’t really sunk in yet to be honest…”

Jordan headed north of the border with high hopes, but with engine issues right from the start of practice, it swiftly dawned on him that it was not going to be the easiest of weekends. That being the case, qualifying eighth overall amongst the 31 KF3 contenders – composed of the very crème de la crème of young British talent – was an excellent effort, being barely two tenths of a second adrift of the top spot and a scant five hundredths shy of defending class champion Jake Dennis in fourth. The only problem was, in such a fiercely closely-matched field as this year’s KF3 crop have proven to be, any deficit at all is going to be a costly one.

“Larkhall is a circuit I enjoy,” related the 15-year-old, “but I hadn’t been there for a couple of years. You need a lot of bottom and middle-end power to go well there – and because we didn’t have that it was hard work. At the start of the weekend you always think you will be able to move forwards, but we just never really had as much power as other people did in the places that we needed it.

“That limited me to just a couple of genuine overtaking places around the lap, and even then I could only really try to get past if the driver in front made a mistake or got slowed down by someone else. That made it difficult to get onto the back of people and meant I had to work a lot harder than usual just to get through the traffic.

“In the first heat we were ok on pace but nothing special – about two tenths off, so not quite quick enough to challenge for the win but there or thereabouts – and then in the second heat we finished fifth, but we were really slow because the engine reed petal went down after only three laps. I should probably have finished about 20th, but I just concentrated on defending for all I was worth! Nobody got past me, though it did get a bit lairy and a little too close on a couple of occasions…”

Indeed, Jordan’s second heat effort was irrefutably a supreme display of how to drive defensively, falling dramatically away from the pace as soon as his engine woes kicked in and going on to draw upon all of his reserves of skill to artfully keep the baying pack behind him for lap after lap after lap.

Though his pursuers repeatedly hit him to try to dislodge him, they never once succeeded in knocking the Harbury ace off his stride, as he crossed the finish line with a train of no fewer than 13 rivals snapping furiously at his heels, six of them within a second of him. Only the 12th-fastest lap time to his name told the story, meaning fifth place was something of a minor miracle in the circumstances, and allied to his earlier fourth position from heat one the results earned him the same spot on the grid for the pre-final, albeit on the unenviable outside line of the grid.

“I managed to get across at the start and came around the first lap still in fourth,” Jordan recounted, “but I had felt the reed pop again on the rolling-up lap, so I knew I was in for another long race. I just slipped backwards until I was ninth, and then I began driving really defensively again to try to keep the others behind.”

It was almost a carbon-copy repeat of heat two – as he again took the chequered flag fractionally ahead of a long line of visibly faster karts, and again set just the 12th-best lap time – but post-race the Stuart Wright-run speed demon found himself controversially docked three places for being deemed to have defended his position too vigorously, even though few in the paddock believed Jordan had actually done anything wrong. Worse still, that left him on the outside line again for the start of the all-important grand final later in the day – and when the lights went out the Repton School pupil would pay the price.

“There was carnage into the first corner,” he recalled. “Someone moved across on me and put me onto the grass; that dropped me down to 18th, from where I managed to come back through to seventh in the end, but we still weren’t quick enough. Over a single lap we weren’t too bad and our lap times in themselves were ok, but in terms of raceability we just didn’t have the power where we needed it to be able to really race people or try to overtake them.

“With a bit more power we could probably have finished higher up the order, but as it was I think seventh was the best we could have got to be honest. If everything had been right, I think we could have been challenging for the win.”

‘What-ifs’ and ‘buts’ indeed dominated Jordan’s Scottish adventure on the whole, and whilst the outcome of the weekend means he can no longer win the title, the 2008 British Mini Max Vice-Champion has nonetheless successfully closed the gap on second-placed Dennis in the standings with one meeting now remaining, at Fulbeck in mid-October. Though he has never competed at the Lincolnshire circuit before, he knows what he has to do – and having begun the campaign with a victory in the Lewis Hamilton-backed Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship at Kimbolton back in April, he would clearly love to book-end his national challenge with a similar result in the Super 1 decider.

“On paper, not having been there before is a disadvantage I suppose,” he mused, “but you can’t afford to look at it that way. We need to get a win really if we are going to finish second in the championship – that would be the perfect way to end the season.”

The work experience at the highest level of motorsport came about during an exclusive auction at the Great Ormond Street Hospital Formula One Party during the build-up to the British Grand Prix. Jordan revealed that it had been something of an eye-opener.

“I was surprised at how laidback the whole atmosphere was,” confessed the Warwickshire ace. “I’d thought it would be a lot more stressful and fast-paced, with people running about all over the place.”

It is just such a calm, measured approach, indeed, that has been pivotal to Brawn GP’s phenomenal success in 2009, with Jenson Button having triumphed six times from eleven starts to-date and team-mate Rubens Barrichello ably backing Britain’s newest sporting hero up with his first victory of the campaign in Valencia and four further podium finishes to-boot.

Spending his time predominantly in the race engineering department as Brawn GP prepared for the European Grand Prix, Jordan admitted that he had been somewhat taken aback by the sheer scale of the team’s facilities, and described as invaluable the chance to meet and chat to key figures such as CEO Nick Fry and team manager Ron Meadows.

“For the first three days I was with a technical engineer and did things like making a gear ratio for the track,” related the 15-year-old. “I went into a few meetings where they were talking about the car, and I learned a lot about the way the team runs.

“For the last two days I then went down into the parts workshop and production area. I helped out around there and learned a bit more about how the car is actually put together and everything that’s involved in that process. It was a great experience getting to see different aspects to the sport compared to what I’m used to out on the track.”

The indisputable highlight of the week, though, was when the Harbury-based speed demon was invited to put his skills to the test on Brawn GP’s state-of-the-art simulator, used regularly by the team’s drivers to prepare for races over the course of the season. Lapping 1.6 seconds adrift of Button led the aspiring F1 star to quip tongue-in-cheek that he was disappointed not to have got even closer to the seven-time grand prix-winner.

“On my last lap I was on for my fastest time yet,” Jordan explained. “I was up two tenths in the first sector and three in the second but then ran wide with two corners to go. On the data I would have been under a second off Jenson…”

As to Brawn’s chances of maintaining their advantage right through to the climax of the 2009 Formula One campaign, the Repton School pupil had no doubt, contending that ‘they will remain quick all the way to the end of the season, and both drivers have a good chance of winning the championship’.

Returning to his racing, having claimed the prestigious Kartmasters honours and coveted ‘GP’ Plate that accompanies them earlier this month, Jordan travelled to Nutts Corner in Northern Ireland for the fifth round of seven on the national Super 1 Series schedule. A solid qualifying performance up against no fewer than 33 top drawer rivals saw the promising teenager lap a scant 16 hundredths of a second shy of the top spot, but a miserable brace of heat races ended in two DNFs – being forced into retirement with a bent axle in the first encounter following an early knock from behind, and overtaking the championship leader to pull out a comfortable advantage in the second before his chain cruelly came off with just two laps remaining.

That left the reigning British Mini Max Vice-Champion plum last in 30th on the pre-final grid, but a stirring drive enabled him to battle his way determinedly through to ninth at the close – ahead of the defending British KF3 Champion – matching the winner lap-for-lap throughout, despite having to fight his way up the order. All was set for an assault on victory in the all-important grand final from a much more respectable grid slot, but then the heavens opened with a vengeance and the meeting was called off, leaving Jordan with nothing to show for his outstanding raw pace.

Still, with the high-profile CIK-FIA World Cup at Sarno in Italy next up on his agenda now in early September, there will soon be an opportunity for the UK’s leading Maranello representative to make amends – and prove his credentials as not only the best KF3 rookie, but the best in the world full stop.

Off the back of a superb season at KF3 level both on home turf and abroad, Jordan took the chequered flag fourth on his KF2 class debut at Shenington, but three weeks later he travelled to PF in Lincolnshire knowing he would be on the back foot from the word ‘go’, after being forced to skip the practice day due to prior commitments.

“We’ve only really had three or four days in KF2 so far,” the 15-year-old explained, “but I would say we’ve got there now pace-wise and in terms of how to drive. We had to miss practice on the Saturday, which meant we went straight into race day; that was a big disadvantage, because the other drivers had all had a whole day in both the wet and the dry to prepare and try things out, whereas we got there not really knowing anything.”

Rapid in the wet – with the rain, as ever, proving to be something of an equaliser – but struggling a little more in the dry, Jordan’s two heat races produced a mixed bag of results. A strong effort in the first of them was undone by a failure to finish – an unfortunate legacy of his Saturday absence – before the Harbury ace rebounded with third place in heat two, having grittily led early on but ultimately been forced to concede a couple of spots as he grappled with a set-up not entirely to his liking and slick tyres on a track surface that was in places still damp.

“It was wet for the first heat and we were really quick,” recounted the Stuart Wright Racing (SWR) speed demon. “We were in second place and catching the leader, but unfortunately we threw a chain because they’ve put new kerbs down on the outside of the track. You could go over the old kerbs, but as we hadn’t tested there beforehand I went over one of the new kerbs and the chain came off, which meant we didn’t finish.”

Fourth on the grid for the all-important final, hopes remained high – and despite paying the inevitable price for beginning on the outside line at a circuit where the importance of starting on the inside can never be underestimated, Jordan retained his composure and fought his way doggedly through the pack to snatch the runner-up spot, a fine way to conclude what has been by all accounts a breakthrough campaign.

“I knew we had the pace to run at the front,” the Repton School pupil related, “but equally starting where we were I knew we had some work to do to get there. I got hung out to dry at the start and dropped back a bit. That cost me some time, but eventually I worked my way up to second.

“The trouble was, by then the gap ahead to the leader was just too big to close. I was gaining on him but only by a tenth or so a lap, so I backed off towards the end to save the engine. Still, I was quite happy with second in the circumstances, considering we hadn’t been there the day before – and to get a podium only second time out was definitely positive.”

It was an impressive effort in Northamptonshire from the 15-year-old, who was only sixth in qualifying for the 36-strong, hotly contested KF3 class field due to handling woes.

His kart is designed to perform best on hotter, more grippy continental circuits.

Nonetheless, fourth and sixth positions represented a solid showing, and earned the Harbury ace a top six starting spot for the first of the all important finals.

On both occasions he would come within barely whisker of a rostrum finish, setting a better fastest lap time than his third-placed rival into the bargain.

Jordan said ‘’It didn’t help that the bottom of my seat fell out half-way through the race. ‘’That never happened to me before and I had to lean out of the kart to stop my bum from dragging on the ground. It didn’t cost me a massive amount of time and I don’t think we would have had a chance of getting third back again anyway because we were still sliding around a lot, but it did hurt a bit.

He added: ‘’In the grand final I got up second at the start, but then they red-flagged the race two laps in. ‘’I didn’t get away quite so well when they re-started it and I was still fourth when it was red-flagged again.’’

Because 16 laps had been completed by then, it was enough to count as a race distance and the result was confirmed.

At the end of the day, indeed, it is consistency that wins championships, and with almost half the season remaining, the reigning British Mini Max Vice-Champion is third behind Red Bull – backed Alexander Albon and defending champion Jake Dennis.

Young Warwickshire karting star Jordon King produced arguably the fines performance of his fledging career to date to overcome all manner of adversity and storm to an outstanding podium finish in the latest round of the hotly-fought 2009 WSK International Series at Genk – and afterwards he warned his rivals “I’m ready to win!”
Jordon is in only his maiden campaign of international competition this year and when the majority of his 81 competitors in KF3 have at least a season already under their belt – but he is far from letting it hold him back.

Already established as the leading British driver in the class in WSK – ahead of such as defending British KF3 Champion Jake Dennis and Red Bull-backed Alex Albon – he headed to Genk with high hopes, and boasting a strong record around the fast and flowing Belgian circuit having set pole position there in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow last year. Unfortunately, things would swiftly go wrong…
“In practise I binned it against a marshal’s post,” he confessed. “That left the kart a bit bent and mangled and I just felt a bit of an idiot really. I couldn’t believe I’d done that!

“We didn’t have time to straighten it out again before qualifying, which meant it felt like a completely different kart. Round right-handers I was on full lock and it was barely turning, while I could practically let go of the wheel through left-handers and it would just steer itself round! I was really annoyed at being 40th when we could and should have been inside the top ten.”

Chastened by his mistake, Jordon would go on to produce a series of solid showings in his four heat races, with a highlight of fifth in heat two and competitive lap times throughout.

Better yet, with the heavens opening shortly before the pre-final, his progress was quite simply meteoric, as the 15 year-old gained a “ridiculous” 20 places in the first two laps alone en route to an excellent fifth at the close – given where he had started, an ominous result.

With the rain abating the time for the grand final, though, and half a dry line appearing, all the 34 slick-shod drivers suddenly found themselves facing something of a journey into the unknown. Nonetheless, hopes were high in the JRP Maranello camp that Jordon could take the fight to the leading contenders for victory – until turn one, at least…

“We were half way through the first corner, when i got hit from behind and spun round on the exit,” the Harbury ace recounted. “That left me facing the wrong way with all the traffic coming towards me, but luckily someone knocked me back in the right direction again and everyone else was able to avoid me – if someone had gone into me it would have been game over there and then.

“That dropped me to dead last and left me really frustrated, but at the same time I knew we could all still get a half-decent result because we were quick enough – though I never actually believed we’d be able to get up as high as we did. If there had been two more laps, I think we could have won to be honest.”

In changeable conditions that wrong-footed many, it was beyond doubt a truly awesome performance, taking Jordon up to third at the chequered flag and reducing what had been a gaping ten-seconds deficit to the leader at the end of lap one to just 3.6 seconds 14 laps later, and barely a second shy of the runner-up spot. Despite having to fight his way through traffic, the Repton School pupil was consistently as much as a second lap faster than any other driver on the circuit, with his best effort eight tenths out of reach of that of the race-winner and an incredible 1.4 seconds clear of anybody else, an eternity in karting terms.

His sheer pace and consistency were breathtaking and more than atoned for his practice mishap, and indeed his phenomenal performance marked the second time in as many weekend that Jordon has had to battle back from a disastrous start to proceedings to conquer the rostrum in sensational fashion. The only slight disappointment is in wondering, had he not been tagged at the start of the grand final, what might have been…