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The Grid.co.uk the national & club motor racing website - est1998 |
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The Grid.co.uk the national & club motor racing website - est1998 |
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mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk Hand draws praise from high quarters for debut on world stage
Despite being new to the European racing, the circuit, the Sodikart chassis and Mojo tyres and the majority of the 71 kart field Ash put on a good show in the heats showings to recover from a torrid qualifying session that had left him down in a distinctly unaccustomed 33rd place. From tenth on the grid in the pre-final, the 16-year-old produced a classy effort to rise to third at the chequered flag, leaving him well-positioned for the grand final later in the day. Then, sitting a close third midway through the he found himself helplessly harpooned by the driver ahead who, in attempting to snatch the lead, clipped the kart in front of him and went shooting across the track, taking the luckless Ash with him. His performance was noted. “Ash did really well,” underlined Jason Parrott, who ran the North Warwickshire College student in Italy. “Before going into the weekend, I had been a bit sceptical about him because he kept winning by such a margin in FKS, which had led to some speculation as it tends to do in karting – but when we went to La Conca, I could immediately see why he has been so much better than everyone else because he was just extremely fast. That’s the bottom line of it. “In testing, we were on the pace straightaway and I was confident Ash could have got at least a top three position in qualifying, but unfortunately he didn’t realise the way new tyres work in Europe so he struggled. He then drove really well in the heats to recover, though, and in the pre-final he knew the game plan was to secure an inside line starting spot for the grand final – and he achieved that to perfection. “I was really gutted for him with what happened in the grand final – I honestly thought we were going to win the race. He had worked hard to get himself up there and just sat back and kept pushing the two leaders like we had told him to – and then one of them crashed out and took Ash with him and we ended up in the fence. I was so disappointed for him – he would easily have been on the podium, and I do think he would have won. There’s no doubt that he’s a very fast driver, and the people at Sodikart were clearly impressed by him.” “It was a real last-minute deal for Ash to compete, but as the FKS Champion there was no question that he was worthy of it,” agreed respected Rotax Max Challenge race director Nigel Edwards. “The equipment was totally new to him, but he seemed to learn as the weekend went on and worked well with Jason, and between them they pulled together in the heats and just got better and better. “In the pre-final, he drove a very sensible race and third place was a fantastic achievement. He just got his head down, quietly got on with the job and did exactly what he needed to do. My money was on Ash in the grand final, but then unfortunately the two leaders collided and that ended up taking him off into the barriers. He looked very comfortable and would certainly have finished inside the top three, and could quite easily have won. “There was some strong competition out there in Junior Rotax and the top echelon was extremely competitive, so Ash’s was an excellent performance. He’s very level-headed and doesn’t get carried away, and he proved that he can handle himself on foreign soil – I know Sodikart really appreciated those attributes in him. It was very, very impressive.” Indeed, the French chassis manufacturer Sodikart were struck by his performance over the course of the weekend. Praise does not come much higher in karting than when it comes from the likes of Gildas Mérian and Nicola de Cola. “I was very impressed by young Ash’s performance and his attacking qualities at La Conca,” stated Sodikart founder and CEO Mérian, whilst team manager de Cola added: “I was astonished by the very high standard of driving in the Rotax Grand Finals, and I particularly admired the performance of Ash Hand.” pic Bas Kaligis
Hand proves he’s every bit as good outside Britain as in it!
As a ‘wild card’ entry by dint of his success in the FKS series this year, the Nuneaton racer travelled to La Conca in southern Italy preparing to pit himself against 71 Junior Rotax class adversaries composed of more than 30 different nationalities. Ash, starting out as a newcomer to the international scene, needed to get to grips with a new circuit, a new chassis with Sodikart, a new team in Jason Parrott Motorsport and a whole host of different rivals. “That didn’t really bother me, to be honest,” he revealed. “I didn’t think about that aspect of it at all. I was just looking forward to getting out there and driving! I didn’t know much about the circuit beforehand, but it was probably the best one I’ve ever driven – and certainly very different to anything I’d raced at before. It’s an exciting and interesting track and quite flowing – you never really get a chance to take a break – and one where you have to be really ‘on it’ to be fast. It’s really technical, too, and just one mistake could cost you a lot of time. “I’d been out testing with Jason a few times beforehand, and I get on with him really well – we work well together and understand each other perfectly, and I think we were able to learn a lot from each other. He was such a good driver when he used to race, so I could draw upon all of his experience, and it really helps that he has been in my position before – it means he grasps my feedback a lot quicker and tends to understand what I’m saying about the kart immediately.” Despite everything being new, Ash was rapid over a single lap during practice – featuring inside the top seven on the first day. The 16-year-old entered qualifying with his spirits buoyed, but a ‘horrendous’ session saw him get caught out by just how much grippier the track was compared to Britain, and he consequently didn’t push his new tyres hard enough to take full advantage of them when they were at their best. “I was really disappointed by that,” he confessed after placing just 33rd, “but I also know overtaking is probably the strongest part of my racing, so I was confident of being able to come through still.” After finding himself punted off at the beginning of his opening heat, Ash fought back from 31st position to eleventh in seven laps. Admitting to enjoying fighting his way confidently through the pack – passing four drivers at one point in a opportunistic manoeuvre and setting the second-fastest lap time along the way – he was made to work hard in his third heat, with another early knock sending him down the order from where he recovered to 13th at the chequered flag. “In heat two, we were so fast it was unreal!” Ash recounted. “I went from 17th on the grid to finish second and felt comfortable with it – I wasn’t ruining my tyres, but just driving calmly and keeping everything in-check. When I wanted to overtake, we had the speed to do so.” Driving past his fellow competitors Ash wound up tenth on the grid for the pre-final the following day – and bullish about his prospects. “Considering how much we had been shunted about during the heats, I was really pleased with tenth,” he acknowledged. “I was a bit wary about starting on the outside line, but luckily I only lost one place and dropped to 11th – I don’t think anybody on the outside managed to hang onto their position all weekend! “After that, I set about working my way through the pack. When we needed the speed, we were able to turn it on, pass people and then drop them. I ended up third and was very happy with that performance – it was just perfect, and left us really confident that we could win the grand final. “I got knocked down to seventh into the first hairpin in that race, but then I started making my way through, and we had a lot of pace again. I got back into third and rapidly closed right in on the top two, but then going round the first corner, Jack Aitken tried to go up the inside of the leader. It didn’t come off so he tried again into the next right-hander, but he clipped the other guy’s rear bumper, which sent Aitken spinning across the track and he took me with him! He spun literally right in front of me and I had nowhere to go.” Finding himself sent into the barriers, Ash was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the outcome should not detract from what was an positive weekend over the course of which he had put not a wheel out-of-place. To progress from 33rd in qualifying to fight for the lead in the grand final of such a prestigious event is praiseworthy and if he didn’t return home with the winner’s trophy his potential was there to see. “I was extremely disappointed, because we had so much speed I’m convinced I would have won,” reflected the Voi Jeans brand ambassador in conclusion, “but I learned a lot from the weekend about racing on European tracks with European tyres and against different drivers, and the whole team did a great job to get the kart and engine spot-on. I’m frustrated about how it ended, but I guess that’s racing – and I’m definitely proud of how well I drove and of what we achieved.” pic Bas Kaligis
Unstoppable Hand takes 2010 Formula Kart Stars crown
With an incredible eight victories already under his belt from the opening ten, Ash headed to Ellough in Suffolk in confident spirits and knowing that just a couple of strong heat results would likely be enough to seal the deal. “I’d never seen the track before, so I didn’t really know what I was going into,” the highly-rated young Nuneaton star confessed, “but in the first practice session, we were already half a second quicker than anybody else. It’s a fun track to drive – quite flowing and with a real mixture of hairpins and slow and fast corners. It’s an interesting circuit and really important to carry your speed well through the first half of the lap, and that makes it quite difficult to be fast there.” After comfortably pacing the opening day in changeable wet/dry conditions, he went into Saturday qualifying only for his throttle cable to snap right at the start of the session and scupper his chances, rendering him unable even to set a single lap time. Particularly frustrating given that he has the speed to be right up at the front, the Maple Park racer acknowledged that the issue left him with ‘a lot more work to do’ and needing to ‘come through the pack as fast as I. “In heat one I got a very good start to move from 20th to eighth in the first corner,” he went on, “but then coming round the double right-hander afterwards I got taken out; another driver just came straight into the side of me and over the front of my kart, which caused my brake pedal and cable to come off. “I came into the pits, where the team sorted out as much as they could, but after I rejoined it was just so hard to brake because I only had the safety cable, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. I was pleased with the way I drove all things considered, but it wasn’t the kind of result we needed, and definitely a setback.” Beginning to fear that it may not be his weekend after all, happily, fourth place in heat two – from the very rear of the 20-strong Junior Max class grid – was enough to put the title beyond reach of any of his adversaries. From 12th on the grid for the final, a series of knocks at the start left Ash right at the back once more, from where he scythed his way up the order to claim fourth spot at the close , a champion’s drive and one that earned the 16-year-old the Bradley Ellis ‘Hard-Charger’ award into the bargain. Despite claiming the championship on what he confessed was arguably his worst day of the season in FKS, it ultimately mattered little. The following day, he would go on to take a commanding pole position and pair of runaway heat victories. The final, however, was again not quite as straightforward. “As I got halfway round the first corner, the kart just seemed to stop,” recalled the North Warwickshire College student. “I got hit from behind and lifted up in the air, which dropped me a fair way down the field and gave me a big flat-spot on one of my tyres – that didn’t help, because it left me with not much grip and a grinding noise for the rest of the race. We seemed to bring it back in the closing stages, though, and by the end of the race we were the quickest on the track – it just took us nearly the whole race to get there!” Looking back on the year in which he truly staked his claim as one of the finest young talents on the British kart racing scene, Ash made a special point of praising his P1 Racing team, CRG chassis and mechanics Richard Amos and Sam Smith as he soaked up the glory and plaudits. “I’m really pleased with the way the season went,” he mused in conclusion. “We’ve had a lot of good results, and I think we did really well to win by the margin we did win by in the end. We didn’t finish outside of the top six all year, which I think is quite an impressive statistic, too. Last year I came on a lot as a driver, and this year I think I’ve really demonstrated what I can do. To win the championship means a lot to me, and it proves that I’ve been consistently good all the way through.”
Hand sweeps all before him in 2010 British finale
Ash has proven nigh-on unbeatable in fellow national championship Formula Kart Stars (FKS) this season, with eight wins from ten starts to-date, but such results have proven frustratingly elusive in Super 1. Until now. “I knew I could go there and win,” the 16-year-old affirmed, alluding to his peerless double victory at the same circuit in FKS a fortnight earlier. “I like the track and it’s fun to drive, but the long straights make it hard to lead at because the others can always catch you up by working together and dragging each other along. Still, in FKS I had been able to break the tow and pull out a gap on both days, so that gave me a confidence boost. I knew I had the kart underneath me to do the job, so the goal was clearly to win again.” A ‘poor’ qualifying session in which power issues left Ash struggling to stay in the tow – so pivotal to lap time at Three Sisters – degenerated into ‘a bit of a nightmare’, as the Maple Park teenager wound up only 11th amongst the 44 Junior Max class entrants. Moreover, he discovered upon returning to the pits afterwards that he had been running 7kg overweight – and with every two kilograms calculated to be worth in the region of a tenth of a second, that could have made all the difference as he wound up just a quarter-of-a-second shy of the fastest time. Undeterred, though, and with his optimism still high as he focussed his efforts on finding the missing speed and putting together a strategy to move forward in his two heat races, Ash took the chequered flag third in the opening encounter and then matched that later on in the second, with fastest lap to his credit. “I dropped down to the bottom of the top ten initially, but then I just turned it on and we came through like we were on fire,” related the North Warwickshire College student. “Every single lap was consistently quick, and it was pretty easy to pass people, break the tow and then pull away. That put me back where I needed to be for the finals.” Indeed, his brace of results hauled Ash firmly back into the hunt and left him P4 on the grid for the first of the two finals. “I fell down to eighth at the start, but after my form in the second heat I knew I had the speed to come through,” he acknowledged. “The tyre pressures took a little while to come on, but I knew we would be quick so I just had to stay patient – and on lap six I suddenly went from being three tenths off to setting the pace! Once the kart came on like that, we were just rapid and I came through really fast. I out-braked the two leaders with three laps to go and then just had to defend to keep them behind me. I was very happy with that. “The second final started quite smoothly, and I was able to break away initially and build up a gap. Jack Marshall caught me up after a little bit, and every lap I could see the shadow of his kart behind me so I knew he was always right there. Sean Babington joined in later, too, and we all had a good fight over the lead, but I just managed to drop them both towards the end and edge away slightly. It was all a question of making sure I kept my head, stuck to the right lines and braked in the right places.” That much is all second nature to Ash and all of the trials and tribulations that he has had to endure in Super 1 this year only served to make victory all-the-sweeter, he reflected. “It’s been a really tough year in Super 1 for various reasons,” he conceded. “We’ve had wheels fall off, been smashed off the track, just problem-after-problem – but we’ve always been on the pace, and it was really good to get a win at last. It just all seemed to come alive this weekend, and it was pretty perfect all-round. “I was extremely pleased with the result. We’ve been winning consistently in FKS, but this just proves we can win in both British championships, and that means a lot to me. The last round is always the best one to win, too, because it’s the one people remember and talk about over the winter.” Having triumphed in the 2009 FKS curtain-closer at Whilton Mill – defeating the newly-crowned champion in a thrilling, no-holds barred duel – this time around it is Ash who stands on the cusp of title glory. He doesn’t even need to score particularly highly at Ellough to seal the deal, but then, the one thing that the Warwickshire speed demon is and always will be, is a racer through-and-through. “I’m going there aiming to win,” he asserts. “What’s the point in just cruising around for points when we’ve got the pace to win?”
Hand delivers a masterclass
Ash headed into the weekend, the ninth and tenth rounds of the campaign, in possession of a healthy advantage in the drivers’ standings, but palpably in no mood merely to race for points. “All weekend, I just wanted to win!” he confessed. “People were telling me I needed to look at the championship – and in the back of my mind that’s what I’m doing – but I still want to win. That’s just my mindset – no matter what race or situation I’m in, I always want to win!” It is just such an approach that had enabled the highly-rated young Nuneaton racer to emerge victorious six times in the opening eight rounds, but this time Ash’s task would be complicated somewhat by the fact that Super 1 Series leader Jack Marshall had entered the meeting in order to gain valuable track time ahead of his own championship showdown at the same circuit next month. The Maple Park teenager reasoned that ‘if I came here to win, I should be able to win against anybody' – and pole position in qualifying on Saturday amongst the 22-strong Junior Max class field was a timely riposte. “In the first heat I got pushed out wide at the start and fell to second,” Ash continued, revealing that to compound matters, he was battling a bug on the opening day. “I tried to overtake the leader, but he put me on the grass which dropped me back to fifth, and after I eventually managed to get past him, all-of-a-sudden he just came up the inside of me so fast, on the kerb and with two wheels on the grass! As I’ve got the championship to think about, I had to back out of it or we would have both ended up in the wall.” That left the P1 Racing driver just fourth at the chequered flag, behind his principal adversary, Jack Barlow – though by setting what was the race’s fastest lap. A similar scenario in heat two left him P4 on the grid for the final, on the theoretically unfavourable outside line – but after Marshall graciously elected to relinquish his front row starting spot for the back of the pack so as not to risk interfering in the title fight, Ash was suddenly provided with an enviable sling-shot into turn one. “I got a really good start and Barlow bogged down off the line, which allowed me to sweep around the outside and into the lead,” he recalled. “After that it all seemed quite straightforward, to be honest. All I had to do was keep consistent, which helped massively, and I never had to really worry about anybody else for the rest of the race. I always felt in control, and I knew I had more in my pocket if I’d needed it. I felt relieved more than anything else when I crossed the line to win – and it was certainly a confidence boost for the second day.” n impressive triumph – to the tune of more than five seconds – Ash’s success was sealed by perfect precision into every corner and consistency that was a veritable hallmark of his weekend, as he produced lap-after-lap within hundredths of a second of one another. Physically better and mentally stronger the following morning – “In practice, I felt like I was driving the kart again instead of it driving me,” he quipped – the Voi Jeans-supported North Warwickshire College student went on to qualify a full quarter-of-a-second out-of-reach of his nearest opposition, with his second and third-best lap times still good enough for the top spot as he proved to be in a class all of his own. From there, he checked out for a brace of heat results, breaking away at just the right moment on both occasions to drop his pursuers back into the pack and take the chequered flag three-and-a-half seconds to the good in the first of them and almost five seconds clear in the other, setting a new fastest lap less than a minute from the end. That was enough to earn pole for the final, in which he would similarly soak up early pressure before edging away as those behind him got swallowed up and began squabbling over the scraps, wearing their tyres down in a futile effort to keep up. “As long as I kept hitting my apexes, it was all good,” he acknowledged. “For the first five or six laps I knew I had to hook everything up perfectly, which I did, and after that I was away. I was just in a comfort zone throughout, I think. It felt really good to do the double again, and it was another big confidence boost for me to beat Marshall, given how well he is doing this season.” Triumphing by nearly four seconds despite rarely having to push flat-out, Ash maturely maintained his concentration with nobody to really race against – the kind of situation in which it is all-too-easy to lose focus and make a mistake. The fact that title rival Barlow came in only seventh was the cherry on top, and after overcoming the odds to not only defeat the Super 1 pace-setter but also notch up his seventh and eighth victories of an incredible season into the bargain, the Warwickshire speed demon is now preparing to head to Ellough Park Raceway in Suffolk for the decider revved up to finish the job off in style. “It would have been nice to have had ten-out-of-ten,” Ash mused of his winning record, “but it can’t always be perfect – and this year has been close to perfect. When we switched from a Kosmic TonyKart derivative to a CRG chassis a few months ago, a lot of people thought it was a bad move – but we’ve proved them wrong and shown that the CRG is a brilliant product and that TonyKart is not the only option in Britain. I’d like to thank Mark Collings from CRG for his and the company’s continued support, and I’m just so happy to be able to repay them like this. “I’m going to approach Ellough now in exactly the same way I did Wigan – I’m going there to win. We should be quick enough – we have been all year – but equally, if it comes down to a close situation in the race I won’t fight too hard, because I know I don’t need to win. I just need to keep my head.”
Pic: Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net Hand ‘rains’ supreme as weather fails to dampen his European dominance
Having proven unbeatable with four straight triumphs earlier on in the campaign Ash’s seemingly unstoppable title bid then hit an speed bump in rounds five and six at Glan Y Gors in North Wales, with a rogue batch of tyres and set-up issues limiting him to a second place and a sixth – and reducing his advantage in the drivers’ standings to a scant three points. That hitherto commanding advantage would swiftly be re-established, however, as the young Nuneaton driver headed cross-Channel determined to build upon the run of podium finishes he had achieved aboard new chassis CRG in the preceding Super 1 and Kartmasters outings – with a return to the very top step. “I think after Glan y Gors we needed to win again, so that was the aim,” the 16-year-old reflected. “I’ve been quick at Genk over the last few years so I was confident of being quick again – what I didn’t know was what everybody else would be like. “Genk is a really good, fast-and-flowing drivers’ circuit, and one of those tracks you never get bored on. That makes it quite challenging, because if you take your eye off the ball you lose time really quickly – it’s easy to make a mistake if you don’t stay concentrated. Over the weekend I saw a few people going off-line, and after that it was game over for them for three laps basically because the dirt you pick up just kills the tyres. “The CRG has always tended to go well in Europe, and it felt consistently planted all weekend, in all conditions. I was able to learn a lot more about it and everything just clicked which made it easy to go fast, and I could always pull a few tenths extra out of it whenever I needed to. It was quite a boost knowing I always had something in reserve. I think it was the best kart in the field overall, so after that the rest of it was down to me.” Hand would go on to qualify a quarter-of-a-second clear of anybody else on Saturday to claim pole in the Junior Max class. He then followed that up by prevailing in his two heat races to the tune of five seconds or more each time, setting fastest lap in both. He then won the final in a similar manner. Having notched up his maiden national victory for CRG,“It felt brilliant to be back winning again; it proved to people that the kart is really good and that I’m driving well too,” he acknowledged, Ash rapidly made it clear that he was not satisfied with just that, and when the heavens opened with a vengeance the next day, he was able to show that he is every bit as adept in the wet as in the dry.
“It was really wet and Genk is one of the most difficult circuits to drive in those conditions, but I figured it out pretty quickly and found the grip a lot sooner than anyone else,” he explained. “I was on the pace right from the start on Sunday – nobody else could really keep up. “In the final, I knew I was going to be fast again after the heats. I had an eight-second lead at one stage and when I looked over my shoulder at the end of the start/finish straight I saw the others hadn’t even come onto it yet, so at that point I knew nobody was going to catch me and I just backed off and kept everything consistent. “I didn’t really feel under much pressure all weekend if I’m honest, but I still had to stay focussed because if you don’t, it doesn’t take much to make a mistake. Being on my own on the track made it difficult to retain that focus at times, and it would have been quite simple really to get ahead of myself. The only thing that kept me going lap-after-lap was trying to beat or match my lap previous time...” With no-one else to have to chase or defend from, it is indeed all-too-easy to lose concentration and end up in the tyre barriers, especially in such torrentially treacherous conditions – but to his immense credit, Ash mastered everything that was thrown at him. “It was brilliant to get back-to-back victories, and a great weekend championship-wise,” he concluded of his Hands-down European clean sweep, as he prepares now to take the fight on to the last two meetings at Three Sisters near Wigan and Ellough Park in Suffolk with his confidence sky-high. “We extended our lead quite a lot, I really feel back in control again and now we need to finish the job off. All I’ve got to do is keep getting consistent podium finishes, and hopefully that should be enough.”
Hand goes down fighting as tyre woes cost him chance of defending ‘GP’ crown
Twelve months ago, Ash claimed one of the greatest successes of his career to-date by triumphing in the Kartmasters meeting at PF International in Lincolnshire, and he returned there this year buoyed by the timely boost of having achieved his maiden victory aboard his new CRG chassis – onto which he had only switched a month earlier – followed by a brace of podium finishes in the national Super 1 Series at Larkhall in Scotland. “I was extremely confident going into the weekend, but not cocky,” the 16-year-old confirmed. “I knew I had the speed to win, but I also knew there would be a lot of other good drivers there as well. All the top names were there, which made it the toughest field of the year.” Not only that, but with Kartmasters being a one-off event, a different mentality tends to prevail out on-track, with only one real prize to be had and no championship points on offer, leading to some occasionally reckless driving standards as all 39 Junior Max competitors eagerly chased the coveted trophy. And all that around a circuit that is in any case all-too often a magnet for accidents and trouble at the first corner and first hairpin... By qualifying second in his group, Ash put himself out-of-reach of most of the chaos that unfolded behind him, but he would have been rather faster still, he contended, had it not been for an unexpected rogue batch of tyres. “Going into the session I was three tenths quicker than anybody else – miles quicker – but then as soon as we put the qualifying tyres on I lost half a second,” he explained. “I was quite shocked by that, and I think we did quite well just to pull off the lap time that we did. After that, I knew I was going to struggle for speed.” That sadly showed in the heats, in the first of which he ran as high as third before slipping back and then finding himself pushed around in the closing stages to eventually finish fifth. Heat two yielded an identical outcome, with lap times barely inside the top ten in both races evidence of just how hard he had been made to work – and whilst the results were clearly not what he had either wanted or anticipated by any stretch of the imagination, in the circumstances they at least represented damage limitation, and left Ash to begin the pre-final on the favourable inside line from P5. “I made a good start and then pushed Andy King around until we had a decent advantage over the others,” he recounted, “and then as soon as I saw there was nobody else within touching distance of us, I made my move for the lead and pulled out a gap. “I was feeling comfortable, but then five or six laps later, all-of-a-sudden Matt Parry came past me and just drove away from me; that was a big surprise, because I thought it was in the bag at that point and that he didn’t have a chance to catch me. Obviously he did. I wasn’t happy afterwards because we had been beaten on sheer pace – he closed a big gap down really quickly, which left us a bit worried for the grand final, to be honest.” Ash’s mood was subsequently alleviated somewhat, however, when Parry was demoted back to third for having illegally overtaken under yellow flags, re-instating the George Eliot School pupil in first place, and therefore on pole for the grand final. Unfortunately, having requested a minor adjustment to his tyre pressures so that his kart would come on towards the end of the race, he instead ended up with a major adjustment that went too far and ultimately destroyed his chances. “I was sitting on the grid knowing I wouldn’t be quick enough to win the race,” he reflected, “so I just had to try to build up a gap at the start and then hope I could hold everybody off. I was feeling racy and I knew I was more consistent than the others, which is what you need at Kartmasters to be able to establish an advantage. “I backed everybody up coming to the line, so that when I accelerated away for the start I already had a three-or-four kart-length gap. Over the first few laps I seemed to drop the others a little bit, but then the tyre pressures came into play and we got hammered. Sean Babington came past me, and whilst initially I was able to stay in his tow hoping my kart would come back to me, as the race went on his kart just seemed to get better and better and he drove off into the distance. “After that, I had a big battle with King for second. He defended really well, but over the last three laps or so he started to get a bit scruffy and aggressive. On the last lap I went up the inside of him exiting the second hairpin; I was clearly in front and he just drove straight into my sidepod and put me on the grass, which ultimately cost him second place when he was penalised for it after the race.” Again, Ash’s lap times – only 11th-quickest – told more of the story, as the P1 Racing driver fought hard to claim the runner-up laurels. A magnificent effort when he simply didn’t have the pace he needed to challenge, there were nonetheless many positives to take away from the weekend. As he prepares next to head across the Channel to Genk in Belgium for the resumption of the Formula Kart Stars Championship, the Warwickshire speed demon is aiming to replace his recent podium streak with a winning streak by re-establishing his erstwhile supremacy – and getting his season firmly back on-track with what he hopes will be his breakthrough national triumph for CRG. “It just seemed like everything was against us over the weekend – luck definitely wasn’t on our side,” Ash mused in conclusion. “For me, Kartmasters was the most important meeting of the year, the only one where if I didn’t win I was going to lose something. I was obviously disappointed not to win it again, but I was pleased for Sean; I knew he would be one of the hardest people to beat, and at least it meant I passed the ‘GP’ plate over to somebody I really respect. “On reflection now, I suppose I’m still quite happy with second; I was consistent throughout and didn’t make many mistakes. We just didn’t have the speed to win this time, but I was able to prove myself again – and if we hadn’t had the tyre issues that we did, it would have been a different story...” pic Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net; Hand overcomes ill-fortune to outscore all of his rivals north of the border
Having achieved his maiden triumph aboard a CRG chassis – onto which he had switched only the previous month – at the same circuit a week earlier, Ash returned to Larkhall buoyant about his prospects. A brilliant pole position in qualifying marked a good way to begin. “I felt really confident going into the weekend,” acknowledged the Maple Park teenager. “I knew we had the pace after the club meeting – winning that against some very good drivers had been a real boost – so I was thinking we had a good chance of winning again. We’ve had so much bad luck in Super 1 this year so I was really hoping for a good result – and I think I deserved one, to be fair. I’ve driven well all season, but just haven’t had the luck. I felt I needed to prove that I can race at the front and finish at the front. “I was extremely pleased to get pole, because it proved I had more speed than anybody else in the field. I like Larkhall, and if you can get it all hooked-up round there it’s quite easy to set consistently fast lap times – but if you make just two mistakes, with so many drivers on the pace it means your chances are effectively over, so the pressure was certainly there.” The 16-year-old made no mistakes at all in his two heat races, effortlessly driving off into the distance in the first and going on to out-race no fewer than four adversaries in a far more fraught second encounter, as his intense duel with Andy King enabled three other drivers to latch onto their scrap in the closing stages and led the George Eliot school pupil to concede that ‘when you’re in a dogfight and you win, it’s a big confidence boost – it felt so good to beat them all like that, because I was under a lot of pressure and I knew I had to defend as if my life depended on it’. Having put not so much as a wheel out-of-place during his clean sweep of pole and double victory in the heats, Ash was very much, as he likes to say, ‘on it like Sonic’ – and also on pole for the pre-final. “I knew it was going to be difficult, because the field was so tight that it put the emphasis on being able to defend well,” he explained. “I knew it would be all about staying consistent and putting the lap times in – the more consistent I could be, the harder it would be for the others to keep up. “Andy and I drove away from the rest of the field again and built up around a two-second gap. Towards the end we started battling, and with about a minute to go there was a backmarker ahead. He slowed down and looked over his shoulder, but he saw we weren’t quite going to catch him by the end of the straight, so he picked up his speed again. “Heading towards the hairpin I think he didn’t know whether to back off or not, so I stayed on the racing line in case he turned in on me and Andy just slid straight up the inside of both of us. He held me out wide, and because we were so close on lap times and there were about five kart-lengths between us after that, I couldn’t catch him again in time. I was happy in the sense that second place was still my best result of the year so far in Super 1, but I had wanted to win.” Simply if frustratingly a case of wrong place, wrong time, a not altogether dissimilar scenario would go on to play out in the grand final later on, when from the unfavourable outside line of the grid, Ash was in one of the box seats for a particularly ‘lively’ opening lap. “At the start I fell back to fourth, but then the leader’s chain fell off and into the same corner Matt Parry went over the back of Andy King,” he recalled. “After that, as Andy was going down the straight his coil came loose, and all of that put me into the lead! “Like in the pre-final, I led virtually all the way, but towards the end Oliver Hodgson managed to get up the inside of me. I was lining him up to try to get him back again and saw my opportunity – he was driving tight and defensively everywhere, so I went out wide in an effort to get the cut-back on him up the inside on the exit of the first hairpin – and then the yellow flags came out, so I couldn’t overtake. That was really frustrating, because again I had wanted to win so much.” With the race ending under a neutralisation, the P1 Racing driver was once more reluctantly forced to settle for P2 – but that still meant he notched up more points than any of his competitors over the course of the weekend, and with his new chassis coming on all the time, Ash Hand and CRG are getting stronger all the time. pics Les McLuckie
Hand: I knew I was quick at Larkhall – now I’ve proved I can win there too!
A self-confessed fan of the demanding Scottish circuit, the outing marked only Ash’s fourth competitive appearance aboard the CRG chassis onto which he switched mid-season – and his performance from the moment he took to the track proved that this driver/kart combination is fast becoming the one to beat. “Larkhall is one of my favourite tracks and I’ve always been fast there,” the 16-year-old affirmed. “It’s my sort of circuit; it’s pretty physical, which means you have to drive it with the front-end of the kart and use the steering quite a lot. As it’s such a short lap, if you get everything perfect you can take a lot of time out of people, but equally, each small mistake also costs you heavily. I had high expectations, because last year I had been two tenths up the road in the final there in Super 1 – so my hope was to go back and win. “I was really pleased with how the heats went. In the first of them I went from 16th to second in just three laps, and in heat two I started 12th and finished second again. I could have won that one, but I went for the lead and the leader defended so much he nearly took us both out, so I backed out of it as there was no point in risking an accident when it was only a heat race. Then in the third heat I just drove off into the distance, which was extremely encouraging.” Confident in his chances, a better fastest lap time than the race-winner in his first two heats – taking the chequered flag less than half a second shy of victory in heat one – and triumphing practically at a canter in heat three gave Ash considerable cause for optimism ahead of the all-important final. Better yet, that optimism that would swiftly prove to be well-founded, as the George Eliot School pupil set about avenging his ill-fortune from twelve months earlier – when a technical exclusion from the runner-up spot in the first Super 1 final at Larkhall had left him needing to fight his way doggedly and determinedly up through the order from the back of the grid in the second race. Whilst a field of 18 of the country’s Junior Max contenders – ‘there were quite a few drivers there that were quick, which meant if you made a mistake you really got punished for it,’ he explained – certainly kept the him on his toes, it soon became apparent that the final would develop into a two-horse race between himself and Andy King, sprinting away to firmly establish themselves as the class of the field as the pair duelled it out tooth-and-nail for supremacy. A duel that only one of them could win. “I started second and Andy got a bit of a break initially, but it only took me three laps to close him down,” Ash recounted. “On one of the laps I set the quickest time I had done all weekend – three tenths faster than I had been in the heats – so I knew then that I had the pace to do it and I was catching him at a rate of knots. “After that, for most of the race I just waited behind Andy and played with him, just figuring out where the best place would be to try to overtake. There was quite a big gap behind us, so I was able to bide my time. On lap eight I went for the inside, but he slammed straight into the side of me almost out-of-control; after that I tried up the inside into the first hairpin, but he came across on me again, which made me a bit wary. “I then just sat on his bumper and worked out where to try to make my move, because I knew from the way he was defending I would need to be really decisive about it so that he couldn’t come back at me again – he was racing hard, so I had to race hard as well. With two laps to go I went down the inside into the first corner and held him out wide to establish a three-or-four kart-length gap – and after that I just kept my head to the finish. I was really happy when I crossed the line. Andy is a good racer and a good friend too, and it was great to beat him in a straight fight like that.” Not only did Ash beat King, he comfortably beat the rest of the field too, ultimately prevailing by just under seven tenths of a second and always confident he had more speed in his pocket had he needed to draw upon it – as evinced by his impressive ability to reel off hot lap after hot lap with comparative ease. As he looks ahead now to the resumption of Super 1 hostilities back at the same circuit, he does so with justifiably high hopes. “It was a really, really good weekend and I enjoyed it a lot,” concluded the P1 Racing driver “I know all the ins-and-outs of the track overtaking-wise now, and to get my first win for CRG was brilliant! The kart was really good, had the most grip it’s had yet and was the best kart out there I reckon. When I first drove the CRG, I found the brakes so sharp that they would put the kart out-of-shape every time I touched them – but now I’m able to use them to my advantage to successfully out-brake other drivers. “The kart was the easiest to drive it’s been so far, which I think is due to me getting used to it more and learning how to get the best out of it. I understand better what it’s doing, and whilst there’s still more to come, it’s improving all the time. The whole weekend was just a massive confidence boost for Super 1; I knew I was quick at Larkhall last year – but now I’ve proved I can win round there too.” . Pic: Gary Kimber/Treble Blue Photography
Hand retains championship lead with podium against-the-odds on adversity-stricken weekend
In only his second national outing on his new CRG chassis since switching from Kosmic – and third outing on it full-stop – Ash travelled to North Wales buoyed by a strong showing in fellow British series Super 1 at Buckmore Park the weekend previously and firmly intent on maintaining the impeccable run that had seen him imperiously triumph in all four FKS finals of the campaign to-date. “I feel a lot more comfortable on the CRG now,” he affirmed. “I can really throw it around and do whatever I want with it – and in testing at Whilton Mill, we were quicker than we had been in the Super 1 meeting there on the Kosmic. It’s completely different to the Kosmic, so much so it’s unreal – the brakes are much sharper, and sometimes when I touch them I still get it a bit out-of-shape. “There’s probably still a tenth of a second or so that I can find from it. When I hook it all up and get the lap right it’s really good; it’s just all about learning how to be consistent with it now – that’s the main thing I need to focus on at the moment. “I felt really confident going into the weekend; the kart felt good, and we had been on the pace at Buckmore. I’m not a huge fan of Glan Y Gors, though – it’s a bit of a bouncy and rough circuit in terms of the tarmac and kerbs – and last year there in FKS, pretty much everything that could go wrong electrically did go wrong!” Sadly, as they say, history does have an unwelcome habit of repeating itself sometimes, and a far-from-ideal lack of spare parts during practice on Friday left Ash unable to perform any meaningful set-up work – though the Maple Park hotshot was still fastest straight out-of-the-box when he hit the track. And then a bad set of tyres scuppered his qualifying chances the following day. “We were four tenths off what we had been in practice,” he rued. “We did a back-to-back tyre test after the weekend, and the set we’d had was that much slower than the other one we tried. I was driving pretty well lap-after-lap, but it just wasn’t giving me back what I was putting in – we were miles off, and though it all felt fine when I was in the kart, when I came round and saw the lap time every time it was just slow. “Nothing felt particularly out-of-place, so we struggled to get our heads around it. I had to try to keep my spirits up to be able to do the job properly, but after qualifying I was a bit down and disappointed, because we just didn’t have a clue what was wrong. I was even doubting myself, because I couldn’t see anything physically amiss with the kart. It wasn’t until Monday that we discovered what the problem was...” Eighth position amongst the 27-strong Junior Max class field was unaccustomed territory indeed for a driver who had not hitherto qualified off the front row of the grid all year, and had sealed pole position three times out of four. Lapping only a tenth of a second shy of pole and a scant two hundredths adrift of P3 went to show that the missing four tenths from the tyres would have made all the difference and could well have changed the entire complexion of the day, but a mature and composed effort to recover from a difficult first lap in heat one secured Ash an excellent third place at the chequered flag, with the fastest lap of the race underlining his speed. Unfortunately, heat two would prove to be a disaster. “I got hung out to dry at the start due to being on the outside line,” he recounted. “I kept trying to cut across to the inside around the opening lap, but there was never anywhere to go; I lost eight places trying to find a gap to get in and dropped down to 16th, and then somebody just took me out. I got shoved over the kerb and into a spin, and because of that my team-mate went straight into the side of me, which bent the kart out by three inches. “I started the final 11th, but across the line the kart just wouldn’t go. I think the mixture was too rich because it had been such a slow rolling-up lap and the engine had oiled up. I dropped back to 18th as a result of that and then spent the whole race playing catch-up. As the first corner at Glan Y Gors is immediately followed by a straight, everybody has to filter in and that causes big gaps to form over the first lap – there were four seconds from P1 back to P10 alone. Those gaps also made fighting my way through quite difficult; it’s a hard circuit at which to try and catch people, but when I did, overtaking them wasn’t a problem.” Indeed, with the only opportunity to make up time on his adversaries being under braking into the corners, Ash pulled off an impressive recovery job in the circumstances as he charged his way back through to sixth with fastest lap once more to his credit. Then Sunday would begin in a crushingly disappointing manner... “Coming out of the hairpin on only my second lap in qualifying, the chain just fell off!” the 16-year-old revealed. “I was pretty angry about that, because I hadn’t touched the kerb at all or even had chance to set a single competitive lap time, which meant I would be starting both heats right from the back. “In heat one, I came out of the first corner tenth having begun 25th; because it was wet, people were all understeering into each other, so just by keeping it tight I was able to make up 15 places. After that, I worked my way through to fifth. It was raining and the kart felt amazing in the wet – really easy to drive and the grip was just there. “There was a problem in that the steering bolt was loose, though – when I went to turn into corners it initially didn’t do anything. The steering wheel just wobbled, and I had to put full-lock on to get it to do what I needed it to. I was having to try so hard to turn and just to keep holding onto the kart, and that killed the tyres – I actually got into the lead at one stage, but then I got pushed back down to third because my tyres were cooked. That made it more draining than it would have been, but physically I was able to handle it and still get the kart round.” Given that his steering wheel was close to falling off at the end of the race and that he had also been forced to battle against wrong tyre pressures, Ash made a 20-place gain on his starting position. The George Eliot School pupil would similarly slice through the field in heat two, finishing third on-the-road before being handed a questionable and overly-harsh five-place penalty following a confusing start. He would consequently begin the all-important final – by which time the rain had dispersed – from P5. “It was quite a tough race,” he acknowledged. “We didn’t really have the pace we needed and I initially slipped back to sixth. I was working really, really hard again and just not getting anything back. I kept pushing, though, and eventually got into the lead and managed to hold it for quite a few laps. I dropped down to fourth at one point and was going backwards, but I was able to scrape back second – although by then the new leader had driven off. I was catching him by two tenths a lap again towards the end.”
What’s more, with a busy schedule ahead now of Super 1 at Larkhall in Scotland, the prestigious annual Kartmasters meeting at PF International – at which he will endeavour to defend the hard-fought and coveted ‘GP’ plate he clinched there last year – and FKS’ next stop at Genk in Belgium all coming up in swift succession, Ash is optimistic about his prospects of getting his season successfully back on-track. “I learned a lot about the kart and how to use the brakes better,” he concluded of his Glan Y Gors weekend. “I learned a lot about how other drivers race as well; until then in FKS this year, because I’d always been so fast I hadn’t really raced anyone else as such. I found out how different drivers operate, which is always useful to know. “I’m really confident about Larkhall; I know the track well and was two tenths up the road there in Super 1 last year, and I’ve been told the CRG usually performs really well around the circuit – it’s one of the best tracks in Britain for the chassis. Last year I had the opportunity to win and it was snatched away from me when I was excluded from the first final due to a mechanic’s error. In the second final I was three tenths quicker than everyone else each lap, but because I’d had to start from the back of the grid, I could only come through to 12th. This time, the goal has to be to win...” pic Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net;
Untouchable Hand leaves rivals trailing – and says: Catch me...if you can!
Ash headed to the Northants track off the back of a superb double victory in the Rowrah FKS curtain-raiser the previous month – having had to battle his way brilliantly through from plum last to triumph in the second of the two finals around the undulating Cumbrian circuit – and in the knowledge that he had the pace, after proving to be rapid indeed but out-of-luck at Whilton the weekend before in fellow national championship Super 1. Moreover, it was the same venue as had witnessed arguably the 16-year-old’s greatest success to-date, with a stunning triumph over newly-crowned British Champion and arch-rival Matt Parry in the last round of FKS in 2009, as the duo duelled tooth-and-nail throughout what was widely-rated as one of the races of the season. All-told, plenty of reasons to be confident. “We knew we could do well, and I went there with the attitude that I wanted to win both finals again,” he asserted. “Whilton is my home circuit and one of my favourites as well; it has a lot of fast, flowing corners and is extremely bumpy, which means you have to be really quick with your reactions and physically strong too – but it’s very rewarding to drive. I’ve been testing there that many times with my mechanic, putting in lap after lap after lap after lap to just see how consistent we can be – and I think that showed in FKS. “After Rowrah, I knew I was going to be strong against the rest of the field and I knew I was quick enough to win, and having raced Matt there last year and come out on top I know I can beat anybody at Whilton. In Super 1 we had been amongst the very quickest too, so it was just a question of keeping it consistent. We’d had bad luck and two DNFs at Super 1, though, so I also had a bit of a point to prove – and that made me even more determined.” Up against 26 Junior Max class rivals, Ash eased comfortably to pole position on both days by more than two tenths of a second, and following a brace of comprehensive heat victories on Saturday, the Maple Park hotshot went on to prevail in the all-important final by the staggering margin of more than five seconds – a veritable eternity in karting terms. And worryingly for his adversaries, he wasn’t, he confessed, even on top of his form that day. “On the Friday night it was my sister’s 18th birthday party and I didn’t get to bed until 1:30am,” he explained, “so when I got to the track the next morning I was already drained – and being such a physical circuit as well, that really took it out of me. I felt a lot better on Sunday.” Coming out of the blocks fighting, on day two Ash won both heats at a canter by some five seconds and the final by more than seven, effortlessly clearing off into the distance without even breaking into a sweat. In a truly peerless and imperious performance, the George Eliot School pupil didn’t miss so much as a single apex all weekend, and a clean sweep of fastest laps completed his utter domination of proceedings – rare indeed in a competition of national calibre. The only time he was not in front, indeed, was when his P1 Racing team-mate Fraser O’Brien nipped ahead at the start of Sunday’s second heat – and even that would not be for long... “I knew at which parts of the circuit I was quicker than him because he is my team-mate,” Ash reasoned. “I know his strengths and his weaknesses, so I knew where my best chances to overtake him would be. I just waited for that opportunity. I expected to be the favourite over the weekend, but I didn’t expect to be quite as far ahead as I was. Without wanting to sound big-headed, I didn’t ever really feel challenged. I imagine it looked boring from the outside, but I wasn’t complaining!” Having now achieved a ‘double-double’ and remaining unbeaten in FKS in 2010, the Warwickshire speed demon has increased his advantage atop the title standings from 11 points to a commanding 74, as he prepares next to travel to Glan Y Gors in North Wales – where he endured a torrid time of things last year. “It felt brilliant to be up on the top step of the podium again,” he enthused in conclusion. “I was proud of myself, and I felt I had driven really well. I actually think my consistency was the best it has ever been. I’m really confident now, having come from the back to the front to win at Rowrah and having led nearly all the way at Whilton. “We didn’t go too well at GYG last year – we had electrical problems, and pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong! I know the track quite well, though, having done a lot of testing laps there, and I think it should be a good circuit for me again. The aim has to be to keep on winning!” The last word, however, goes to Ash’s dad, who quipped at the end of the weekend that ‘I like boring races!’ On the evidence thus far, Mr. Hand is in for an extremely boring season....
Double top for Hand with a comeback to rival the best on Easter Sunday
With fuel issues having severely blunted his challenge in the opening meeting for fellow national series Super 1 a fortnight earlier, and plenty of experience and a superb previous record around Rowrah – having claimed there in 2009 what he described as his finest victory to-date – Ash returned to the challenging Cumbrian circuit fired-up to achieve a good result, and he would be on it right from the ‘off’.
“We had done a lot of testing,” he explained, “so I knew the chassis and
engine were both going to be on top of their game, and the fuel was all
fine this time too. I was confident I would have the equipment beneath
me to do the business – so I went to Rowrah aiming to win. That form was converted into pole position in qualifying on Saturday out of the 27 Junior Max competitors, before Ash literally blitzed his adversaries in the day’s two heat races, comfortably prevailing in both and setting fastest lap in the second for good measure, even enjoying the luxury of being able to back off in the closing stages to save his tyres for the final – which he went on to magnificently lead from lights-out to chequered flag. “Everything just seemed to fall into place,” the 15-year-old acknowledged. “I got a good start, got away and then built up a decent gap. I initially had a three-second advantage over my team-mate Fraser O’Brien, and I extended that throughout the race. When he threw a chain just over halfway through, I had a huge gap over second place.” Indeed, Ash’s margin over his closest pursuer was as great as 15 seconds at one stage, but again maturely electing to preserve his equipment, the Maple Park ace sagely backed off towards the end to the tune of as much as half a second a lap to cross the finish line just over ten seconds to the good following a truly peerless performance – and the spoils of victory were just reward after going unchallenged all day. On Sunday, however, the P1 Racing driver would face more adversity, firstly finding himself pipped to pole position by O’Brien in the dying moments of qualifying, as his team-mate benefitted from being out on-track at just the right moment to narrowly nick the advantage. The only time all weekend that Ash was not quickest, he nonetheless remained optimistic of being able to turn the tables come the races. In the opening heat, he tracked O’Brien closely, palpably the faster of the pair but intelligently playing the team game – mindful of the fact that he did not want to risk causing an accident between team-mates, and also knowing he only needed to finish second to secure pole again for the final – until the Welshman hit difficulties that let Ash through. A straightforward win in heat two, meanwhile, displayed shades of the previous day, before a disqualification on mechanical grounds sent the Warwickshire teenager right down to plum last on the grid for the final – and on a mission to prove a point. “I gained a few places at the start,” he recounted, “and then just made my way through lap-by-lap. I took eight drivers on the first lap, then four or five on the next – I was able to drive through the pack pretty quickly to be honest. Five laps in I was already up to eighth – and that was the point where I really started to believe I could win. “I got up to the front pack, and followed Fraser past Declan Jones into third. I overtook Fraser, and then there was a three-second gap ahead to the leader Jacob Hunstone – but I was catching him at the rate of seven tenths per lap. I could see him looking over his shoulder wondering where I was, and though he was clearly trying to push harder and harder, no matter what he did I was still just so much quicker. “I knew I’d got him as soon as he started looking behind; I think because I had come from so far back, when he saw me chasing him, mentally that was where he lost the race. He began to make some mistakes, and that just made it all-the-easier for me. When I caught him I got past him straightaway, and after that I just paced myself to the end. I was so happy when it finished – I couldn’t believe I had actually done it! I had told everybody I was going to win and obviously I had wanted to win, but I had been thinking it would be a pretty tall order...” Indeed, having quipped to pole-sitter Josh Parker that he would overtake him on the very last lap, he did so rather sooner than that. That had only yielded the runner-up laurels, however – whereas Ash went one better still. “I said to him on Saturday before the final, ‘Could you go a bit slower please because you’re making it boring’,” remarked FKS commentator Henry Beaudette, “but what Ash did on Sunday was anything but boring! It was one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time by anyone anywhere. It was precision overtaking at its finest. And on Easter Sunday too – what a day to choose to make a comeback...” Joking apart, it was an awesome drive and one that both inarguably topped his 2009 Rowrah triumph and also represented a huge confidence boost ahead of the remainder of the season. Far from merely winning, Ash fairly blew them all away, and as he next returns to Rowrah for the second round of Super 1 targeting a repeat, and then heads to his ‘home’ circuit of Whilton Mill in Northants – scene of a stunning victory over the newly-crowned British Champion back in October at the end of a thrilling down-to-the-wire duel – for the second FKS meeting of 2010, can anybody halt Ash Hand’s winning streak..? pic Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net;
‘Exceptionally fast’ Hand lauded for ‘great potential’ on maiden single-seater try-out
Ash was one of five leading contenders from the Formula Kart Stars (FKS) British Championship to be invited to Bedford for a special shoot-out, the winner of which would receive a £10,000 bursary towards a season’s competition in the Formula Palmer Audi (FPA) junior single-seater series. The 15-year-old earned his place for having thoroughly dominated the second round on the 2009 FKS calendar at Kimbolton, brilliantly triumphing by nigh-on five seconds – a near eternity in karting terms. “I found out I was going the week beforehand,” he revealed. “I was really excited about it, though I didn’t really know what to expect, which meant I wasn’t too nervous until it got to the point of actually getting in the car. I didn’t have any idea how hard it was likely to be – though I knew it would be tough to get through to the final three, and that if I was going to do that I would need to push.” Before that, however, the five participants were taken on a tour of the workshop to see how the cars are put together, listened to a briefing of what they were going to be doing and shown the Jaguar JP1 two-seater sportscar prototype that they would initially be driving, with an instructor alongside and for two runs of ten laps each. For a driver whose prior experience in racing cars was completely non-existent, it was a daunting prospect, and very much a case of being thrown in right at the deep end. “I was really excited to see the car,” Ash confessed, “and even more so when I found out the gears were paddle-shift, which meant I didn’t have to worry about getting used to that side of things too much. The Jaguar felt like a proper racing car, and I was surprised by just how quick it actually was! You get to the 50-metre marker before the corner and then hit the brakes from 110mph or 120mph and just stop – I’d never experienced brakes as powerful as that before! “Going down through the gears at the right time for the brakes was difficult to get used to as well, because if you weren’t hard enough on the brakes then you had to be careful how quickly you dropped the gears. You had to be physically strong, because the back end would kick out sometimes and give you a handful of opposite-lock and you just had to control the slide and power your way out of it again. After about three laps I felt more comfortable, though, and was able to take the chicane flat-out – and I loved driving it!” Once all five drivers had taken to the track, the data was analysed and three of them – Ash included – were told ‘X-Factor’ style that they were going through to the next and final round, the top three shoot-out. Aware that he was up against some stern opposition, the Formula Jaguar would represent for the Maple Park teenager another challenge again. “I was so excited to be going out in a single-seater!” Ash enthused, still palpably buzzing from the experience. “The nerves really kicked in then too, though, because you know that with no instructor alongside you anymore, if you make a mistake and damage the car, there’s nobody to blame but you. They sent me out first, and on my way out of the pits I floored it in second gear; because of how much lighter it was than the Jaguar, it just felt so much more powerful! It was amazing out on the track! “Being an open cockpit, when you brake into the corners you can watch the tyres to see if they’re locking up. It took me a while to get used to the brakes, and to begin with when I went into corners the inside front wheel would lock up and blue smoke would come off it, which generated some understeer. Once I had sorted that out, though, it just began to feel like driving a big go-kart with gears to be honest and I got better and better. I was pretty quick by the end and going into the corners flat-out...” With commitment evidently not a problem, Ash’s speed, consistency, smoothness, accuracy with regard to hitting the apexes and mature approach both inside and out of the cockpit greatly impressed observers. By common consent amongst those present, the George Eliot School pupil did a superb job, proving to be extremely quick and displaying tremendous promise under considerable pressure. Whilst missing out on the prize to the oldest and most experienced driver in the field, the Warwickshire teenager admitted that he was pleased simply to have progressed through to the shoot-out, affirming that he had learned a lot from what was ‘a really good experience’ and making a special point of thanking the team at FPA for their expert guidance and tutelage and ‘an amazing opportunity’. As he bids to graduate from karting to single-seaters in 2011 – hoping to have made enough of an impression to catch the eye of interested teams – Ash is aiming to do so on a high with the title of British Champion to his name. Either way, FPA championship co-ordinator James Gornall clearly believes the P1 Racing ace is destined for great things. “Obviously we didn’t know quite what to expect beforehand, but Ash was impressive enough to be put through to the final and was the first driver to go out in the single-seater,” appraised the man who oversaw proceedings on the day. “There was a lot of pressure on his shoulders because of that, but he performed fantastically. “We were pleasantly surprised by how fast he was straightaway; he proved he could do the business on the circuit, and I could see he was learning all the time he was out there. Being on his own in the single-seater, there was no-one to point him in the right direction, but he was adjusting his lines and his timing on the throttle and brakes in corners and thinking all the time. “Ash absolutely has great potential, and no doubt has the ability to perform well in cars. Had he been out in one of our Formula Palmer Audi race meetings, he certainly wouldn’t have been at the back – and it was his first time in the car! He is exceptionally fast, and he will perform well when he does move into single-seaters.”
pic Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net; Ash Hand is 2010 Rotax Winter Series Champion – now for British title glory!
Having snatched the lead in the title chase courtesy of an artful and dominant victory over arch-rival Matt Parry the previous time out – again at PF, and a meeting he admitted to having entered primarily to get a bit of extra testing in ahead of the national campaign – Ash returned to the Lincolnshire circuit fired-up, and immediately on the pace. Fastest in practice, even on old tyres, the 15-year-old was soon showing a clean pair of heels to all 61 of his adversaries in the bumper Junior Max class field, and he would continue that form into the races. From 32nd and last on the starting grid for his first heat, Ash charged through to finish an excellent fifth, barely a second shy of victory after scything his way past fellow drivers almost as if they were not even there and leaving them quite literally trailing in his wheeltracks at an ever-increasing distance. From pole position in heat two, the Maple Park teenager was never once challenged, storming away to triumph by a staggering 6.5 seconds – the karting equivalent of the proverbial country mile. Fastest lap in both of the races was a mere formality, and from pole again in the final, what would ensue was the latest in a long line of no-quarter-given, no-holds barred scraps with reigning British Champion Parry. “Everything just felt really good and we were rapid all weekend,” Ash recalled. “In my heats I was practically in another league, and in the final Matt and I got into a dogfight. He went across the grass at the chicane which allowed him to take the lead, and Josh Parker then did exactly the same which left me back in third. I got them both back again, but then the race was red-flagged because somebody had spilt coolant all over the track which made it too slippery.” Prior to the re-start, however, drama struck, when Ash’s clutch seized up – casting some doubt upon whether the P1 Racing ace would even be able to carry on at all. Happily, he could – but the trouble would certainly represent a handicap over the race’s second half. “When we went to start the kart up again, the clutch was permanently engaged and it would barely move,” he explained. “It was just metal-on-metal grinding away. It was just crawling along, and although we eventually got it started, I had no bottom-end power throughout the race after that. That hurts you quite a lot around PF, and probably cost me about three tenths a lap, a massive difference.
“I took the re-start third because they moved the order back a lap as they usually do, and Parry got away which left me and Parker battling over second. We then started to reel Matt back in again, and because he had taken a short-cut to grab the lead in the first place, he was handed a two-second penalty after the race, which gave me the win. That felt really good given the problems we’d had.” Crucial to the outcome was a superbly crafty switchback on Parker into the last corner on the last lap – a move, he confessed, ‘that wasn’t really there’ – after his rival had snuck ahead by taking advantage of Ash’s kart bogging down. As gutsy a drive as you could ever wish to see, the George Eliot School pupil’s dogged, indomitable, never-say-die determination was enough to earn him the Winter Series trophy – and as he now prepares to launch his assault on Super 1 success in the hotly-fought national series, beginning encouragingly at PF, he positively rates as ten-out-of-ten his chances of turning the tables on Parry and claiming the laurels for his own this time around. “I’m feeling extremely confident now,” he concluded. “It was a massive boost to be able to come through the pack as quickly as I did in the first heat, and to pass and then just drop so many leading drivers along the way. Everything feels right on-form at the moment, and I think we should have a strong weekend at Super 1. Matt can always pull something out of the bag, but as long as everything else is right, I know I’m capable of winning!”
pics: Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net
Hand: I only went there to practice...now I’m right in the title fight!
After truly making his mark on the national stage in 2009, Ash has clear designs on British title glory in 2010, as he remains for a second campaign in the fiercely-contested Junior Max category. Heading to PF International for round three of four on the Winter Series schedule, his previous form around the Lincolnshire circuit was encouraging, with a stirring comeback that yielded third place – indeed, damn near victory – from dead last following an early knock, and the runner-up spot after a misguided engine change scuppered a likely triumph his most recent two results. This time around, the 15-year-old intended to bring that third-second sequence to its logical conclusion – and, devastatingly quick in both the wet and the dry, he would do so with some panache. “I was feeling pretty confident no matter what the conditions,” Ash confirmed, “and we were fast right from the off – on Saturday morning we were quickest by six tenths in the wet. The first heat was quite rough at the start, but I was expecting that. When I popped out of the first corner I was already into the top ten from 15th on the grid, and after that I just worked my way through. “I think I just figured the track out quicker than anyone else, and within four laps I was at the front. When I overtook the leader I pushed him a little bit wide to make sure that I got a gap and could break the tow, and after that there was never really any pressure. “I started the second heat 18th, and into turn one I got tangled up with a few other drivers. The pack split up quite quickly as a consequence of that, but I was almost seven tenths faster than anyone else and was able to come back through to seventh. That was a good result given that I had been down in 28th after the first corner...” That it undeniably was, and it earned the Maple Park teenager pole position for the all-important final, by which time the heavens were having difficulty in making up their mind about quite what they wanted to do. Worse still, darkness was slowly beginning to fall over PF, but Ash made light of the situation to speed away at the start and quickly establish an advantage of around a second over season-long 2009 rival Matt Parry. And when the weather turned particularly nasty later on, the P1 Racing driver would truly show his class. “I knew some corners were still wet, so on the rolling-up lap I had to check the circuit and figure out where was wet and where was dry,” he related. “It was very slippery in parts, and the rain kept beginning to spit and then stopping again, so I wasn’t really sure what it was going to do. I got into the lead at the start and built up a decent gap, but then it really did begin to rain, which made the race a whole lot more difficult, because the track was suddenly completely different and we were all out on slick tyres! “My mechanic Sam was signalling to me from the pit wall to push, and as I did so the kart just slid away from me into the first corner – I thought I was going to be buried in the fencing, but fortunately I managed to hold it together. After that I had to go more slowly into every corner and find a different line according to where the grip was, and being the first driver to come across it all makes it even harder still, because you simply don’t know what’s around each turn. “It takes at least a couple of laps to adjust to how snappy the kart has suddenly become and what the different corners are like, but once I got past that stage I was fine. I’ve done a lot of testing with slicks on a wet track, so I’m extremely confident in those conditions, and it was just really about finding out which bits of track were slippery and which had more grip. I knew I always had an extra little bit in-hand should I have needed it, so when it started to rain I was confident that the battle was over.” It was, and with Ash visibly far more at ease in the treacherous and greasy conditions than the increasingly ragged and error-prone Parry, the outcome marked another comprehensive defeat of the reigning British Champion, the title that the George Eliot School pupil is aiming to claim as his own later this year. Incredibly, it also represented his maiden club meeting success at PF – and, he hopes, a sign of things to come. Having travelled north ‘just with the intention of getting some more practice in for the British Championship’, Ash returned home again leading the points table – and with one Winter Series round now remaining, he admits, ‘we might as well try to win it’. The tables, it seems, could be about to definitively turn.
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It
seems Ash Hand’s international debut in karting in the 2010 Rotax Max
Challenge Grand Finals at La Conca in southern Italy has turned more
than a few heads – with the young Nuneaton racer and reigning Formula
Kart Stars (FKS) Junior Max Champion receiving praise from some of the
sport’s most influential figures. .jpg)
He
had already ably proven himself with an outstandingly performance to
claim the 2010 Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship laurels, but after
heading out to La Conca to compete in the Rotax Max Challenge Grand
Finals, Ash Hand demonstrated that he is every bit as capable of doing
battle on the international stage, too..jpg)
Ash
Hand is the 2010 Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Junior Max Champion, after
doing what he needed to do to clinch the coveted crown in the Ellough
Park Raceway.
Ash
Hand has not enjoyed much good fortune in the British Super 1 Series in
2010, but in the last meeting of the campaign at Three Sisters near
Wigan, Lady Luck finally deigned to smile upon the young Nuneaton kart
racer..jpg)
Ash
Hand found himself unexpectedly fighting a war on two fronts when
Formula Kart Stars (FKS) resumed for its penultimate outing of 2010 at
Three Sisters near Wigan..jpg)
Ash
Hand travelled to Genk in Belgium for the seventh and eighth rounds of
the 2010 Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship bidding to re-assert his
authority in the chase for the coveted crown – and despite the
unpredictable weather doing its best to make life difficult for
competitors, he fulfilled that brief and then some.
With
his quality as a fast-learner transpiring to be key to his outstanding
success, the P1 Racing driver’s first timed lap in Sunday qualifying was
a full three tenths of a second out-of-reach of what any of his
adversaries could muster ‘, and the heats, similarly, were almost a
carbon copy of 24 hours earlier. As he admitted to never really feeling
threatened all weekend, the second day’s final was in truth the only
time all meeting that anyone got remotely close to Ash, and even then he
had it all comfortably in-Hand, if you’ll pardon the pun..jpg)
Ash
Hand’s chances of successfully defending his hard-fought ‘GP’ plate from
the 2009 Kartmasters outing were effectively extinguished by myriad tyre
woes that left the young Nuneaton driver battling to all intents and
purposes with one arm tied behind his back – but he didn’t go down
without a fight.
Ash
Hand had the misfortune to twice find himself in the wrong place at the
wrong time just when it counted the most in the fifth round of 2010
national Super 1 Series at Larkhall in Scotland – but by dint of a
consistent performance, the young Nuneaton karting driver still
succeeded in outscoring every single one of his rivals. 
As
preparations go, wiping the floor with your rivals in the warm-up
meeting for the national Super 1 Series is not a bad way to start – and
that is precisely what Nuneaton kart pilot Ash Hand did when he headed
north of the border to Larkhall. .jpg)
Ash
Hand faced more adversity and ill-fortune in the third meeting of the
hotly-fought 2010 Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship at Glan Y Gors
than most drivers encounter in an entire season – but through gutsy
determination and a doughty never-say-die attitude, the young Nuneaton
driver came away again with a totally unexpected podium finish and still
sitting atop the title standings.
A
hard-fought runner-up spot represented a good job of damage limitation,
as well as Ash’s fifth podium finish from six starts this year. The fact
that his mechanic had erroneously left a wet set-up on the kart when the
track was by then bone dry didn’t help his cause much along the way
either – “Turning-in killed the front end and just stopped the kart on
its nose; it was hopeless...it wouldn’t go through the fast stuff or the
slower corners how I wanted it to,” he mused, summarising that it had
been ‘all a bit of a shambles’ – but significantly, the P1 Racing ace
retained his championship lead in circumstances that would have seen
many lose their way..jpg)
Ash
Hand was never threatened in the second meeting of 2010 in Formula Kart
Stars (FKS) at Whilton Mill in Northamptonshire – and indeed, so
crushing was the young Nuneaton star’s superiority, that he has now
raced clear of the field in the chase to follow in Lewis Hamilton’s
wheeltracks and lift the British Championship crown. .jpg)
So
utterly dominant was Ash Hand in his latest karting outing – the 2010
curtain-raiser for the Formula Kart Stars (FKS) Championship at Rowrah
in the Lake District – that not one of his rivals was able to hold a
candle to the young Nuneaton driver, enabling him to leave again with a
near-maximum points haul...and as one of the favourites for British
title glory this year.
He
had never driven a single-seater before, indeed never so much as set
foot inside a racing car at all – but still that didn’t prevent Ash Hand
from turning heads on an impressive test outing at Bedford Autodrome,
with assessors left waxing lyrical about the young Nuneaton driver’s
performance, speed and potential. 
Nuneaton
“It
was making such a loud grinding noise that apparently everybody in the
grandstand could hear it! It was worst coming out of the second hairpin,
because every time I went in there it would just bog down. I still
believed I had a chance of winning, though – I just had to figure out
how I was going to do it! I had to be more intelligent in my driving,
rather than just focussing on banging in quick lap times. I had to brake
later and carry more speed into the corners so that I had some momentum
coming out of them again. .jpg)
Ash
Hand has confessed that he only really went to his latest karting
meeting with the objective of getting some more practice in before the
main season gets underway – but such was his dominance and the
brilliance of his victory in demanding, changeable conditions, that the
young Nuneaton star now finds himself as the favourite to clinch the
2009/10 Winter Series crown.