News Article
Gutsy King doggedly defends his chances of clinching runner-up laurels
Warwickshire karting star Jordan King produced arguably the most impressive defensive drive in recent memory in the latest round of the national Super 1 Series at Larkhall in Scotland – as he battled against a distinct lack of power and grittily bade to keep alive his hopes of finishing as runner-up in the 2009 title chase.
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.”
