King rues scoring system as consistency costs him British crown « Jordan King

Young Warwickshire karting star Jordan King was left paying the price for a supremely consistent season as the national Super 1 Series drew to a close – with the intricacies of the scoring system leading him to end the campaign sixth when he would otherwise likely have won.

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.”