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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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To keep up-to-date with Jack’s latest career news and results, please visit: www.jackhawksworth.co.uk pics - Gregory Heirman/FotoFormulaK and Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net
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mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk
Hawksworth best of British as he beats F1 star in Karting World Cup
Jack travelled to the southern Italian circuit near Naples knowing it was his golden opportunity to show the international motor racing fraternity just how good he is, and off the back of some encouraging test sessions with his Energy Corse outfit, hopes were high. However, right from the offset in free practice, he rapidly realised that the weekend was not going to be an easy one... “I think we felt we were going to be faster than we were at the start,” the 18-year-old reflected, “but we really didn’t have the speed. We thought we had done enough to be right up there at the front, but other teams had obviously made more progress than we had and were faster, and deservedly so. We got caught out by the CRG and Intrepid guys using the Tec-Sav engines; they were so fast it was beyond belief. Even the official Tonykart team couldn’t keep up with them – they were just ballistic. “We worked like hell all weekend analysing the data and changing the set-up; we were flat-out to try and find some more pace, and I was quite satisfied with 15th in qualifying – I was just two tenths off fifth, and it put us in a good starting position.” Indeed, to be that close to the sharp end amongst the 68 entrants – the very crème de la crème of worldwide competition – was an admirable effort considering the problems the team had, and left Jack in with a good shout in his four heat races. After recovering from an early ‘off’ in the first of them that dropped him down the field, the Cullingworth speed demon registered two sixths, an eighth and a tenth to secure a more-than respectable 14th starting slot for the pre-final, into which only 34 of the participants would progress. “We had an overheating problem with the engines, so in the heats it was just a case of keeping my cool under pressure, not throwing it off the road and making sure I kept myself in the game,” he recounted. “I made quite a good start in the pre-final and picked my way through; we were just lacking engine power still. There are a lot of long straights and tight corners at Sarno, so you need good power off the corners to pull you down the following straight. “I was happy in tenth and thought that would be a good place to start the grand final; that would have put us in a good position for a top ten finish overall, which was what the aim was when we had seen how fast the CRG and Intrepid boys were. Unfortunately, though, with just two corners remaining the engine let go...” That left Jack to begin the all-important grand final – the race that would see one of its starters crowned World Cup winner – from a lowly 25th, with his chances of a decent result somewhat diminished. That notwithstanding, the former British ICC runner-up, Junior Max European Champion and Junior Max World Championship runner-up demonstrated precisely why he is so highly-rated on the global stage with a gritty and intelligent performance to work his way through to 13th at the chequered flag – a mere two spots shy of reigning KF1 World and European Champion Marco Ardigò, less than two seconds away from the top ten, comfortably best-placed of the five Brits in the event and ahead of a certain Jaime Alguersuari, Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 driver... “I just thought ‘this is it, this is the World Cup,” he related. “I knew we were not going to win the race from 25th nor even finish inside the top five probably, and we didn’t have the pace to go forward truthfully, so I knew I just had to push 100 per cent and do the best job I possibly could. I kept my foot in around the outside of the first few corners and got up to 20th straightaway. It was a really aggressive first lap actually, and I was soon up to 14th. “For the first five laps or so we were absolutely rapid; we had a lot of pace and were coming through really fast. I got up to tenth, but due to the fact I had been pushing so hard to make up places – getting on the gas early and overtaking a lot – I overheated the rear tyres a bit and the kart started to slide. With that and the fact that we were still lacking power, we had to be satisfied with 13th in the end. “Considering I came through from the back following the engine seizure – in what I would say was probably the hardest race all year – to finish just a couple of positions behind the reigning KF1 World Champion, I can’t be unhappy with that. If you look at the fastest lap times, we really weren’t up there; we didn’t have the pace and we were struggling. I did my maximum and finished as the top driver in the team and top Brit, so I’m pleased with that. It’s always good to beat your team-mates and countrymen, and I successfully did that – and at the end of the day, 13th in the world isn’t bad, is it..?
Hawksworth rebounds from European pain for German gain
Sixth in the title chase heading into the European decider following a turbulent opening round at La Conca in Italy in which he had been unceremoniously punted out of third place early on in the grand final, the young Bradford star knew Wackersdorf was going to be a winner-takes-all affair – and he entered the weekend very much as the underdog. Second-quickest out of the 68 international KZ2 class competitors in qualifying – with Angelo Lombardo, his chief rival for the laurels, back in sixth – made it one-nil for the keen footballer, and a brace of victories and three runner-up spots from the heat races earned Jack the same position in the intermediate rankings, meaning he would begin the pre-final from the front row of the starting grid alongside his arch-nemesis and the man he knew he had to beat. But then disaster would strike... “We all wanted to win,” he underlined. “It was a case of win-or-bust really – we were going to go for it no matter what. We were a long way behind in the championship so the odds were stacked against us and we knew it was going to be hard to get the job done, but we’ve usually gone well at Wackersdorf, so I was confident of being able to win both finals. The opposition at that level is always tough, but I knew we would have the pace and we just had to hope the results would go our way. “In qualifying and the heats we were quite fast; the only problem was the factory Tony Kart guys were even quicker, but because we were consistent too we were right up there. I had a really good start to the pre-final and led for the first 12 laps, but then Lombardo overtook me and was able to pull away a little bit, and several laps later Devid De Luchi in third got me as well. “I knew I had to win the race to have any chance of winning the championship, and I managed to re-take second place on the last lap, but then Devid came back up the inside of me again over the grass and Patrik Hajek came through too. Then it all went kaput into the final corner. De Luchi and Hajek were together, and I went up the inside into the chicane, which isn’t really an overtaking spot normally, but it was the last lap and they were defending in all the usual passing places. It was just one of those situations where all three of us basically went for the same piece of track, and I ended up in the tyre barriers... “I was a bit annoyed and very frustrated, but at the end of the day I had to go for it – it was do-or-die; in that situation I had no other choice. I didn’t feel like I had lost the championship, though – it was Angelo’s championship to lose. It wasn’t like I had been expected to win, because I was just so far behind. We knew we had to win at all costs and I did all that was asked of me; I couldn’t have done any more.” With Lombardo cruising to victory and with it the coveted crown, the grand final became suddenly somewhat academic, but from plum last on the 30-strong grid, Jack fought his way up to 15th at the chequered flag, knowing he had at least gone down fighting and hopeful of a better weekend ahead in the DKM Championship at Ampfing – a tight, twisty, undulating and demanding circuit where he had previously mounted the top step of the podium. He would, indeed, swiftly make amends. An understeer-afflicted fourth out of the 39 entrants in qualifying was a solid way to begin – just ahead of Energy Corse team-mate Paolo de Conto – and set the scene for a third and a sixth in his two heat races, but handling woes would cause major problems along the way. “We would go out and after ten laps I just had no tyres left,” he explained. “The chassis was destroying them, and we couldn’t seem to get it to work or fix the problem at all. When we came in at the end of the race, everybody else’s tyres looked perfect and I had none left! With that in mind, we just aimed to try and work around it and get through the heats in a reasonable position, and securing fourth on the grid for the pre-final meant we were still in the game. “Everyone put new tyres on for the finals the following day, but at the end of the pre-final mine were completely wrecked again. The first four laps were absolutely fine and I was catching Rick Dreezen in the lead, but then the kart just started sliding around. I was surprised to be able to hang onto second to be honest. If it hadn’t rained for the grand final we would have been in reverse gear...” As it was, the heavens opened with a vengeance in-between the two races, and in so doing answered Jack’s prayers. With no such issues on wet-weather rubber, the 18-year-old rapidly found himself in his element in the treacherous conditions and fairly scampered away into a commanding lead in the grand final – but when the sheer amount of standing water made it too dangerous to continue the action was halted, and only re-started again once it was deemed safe to do so. Unfortunately, by then it was also dry...
“It was a pretty torrential downpour and I know I’m quick in those
conditions,” related the Margutti Trophy winner. “It’s just a case of
driving with your brain, and considering things like covering the holes
in the airbox so that too much water doesn’t get in and cause the engine
to break. You just have to avoid doing anything stupid really. Obviously
you have to carry a bit of speed, but it’s more about driving at 50 or
60 per cent and keeping it on the track, because there were a lot of
people spinning off. “I had an awful start and dropped back to seventh, but the kart was unbelievably fast. Within three laps I was into the lead and I went on to pull out a straight’s advantage over everyone – and then they red-flagged it. They had to wait an hour for the track to dry up sufficiently, but when it re-started we discovered we had gone too low on the tyre pressures. I led again for the first ten or 12 laps, but then began sliding a lot and dropped back to third. It’s just a shame the first part got red-flagged, because we were absolutely flying...” Confessing to being ‘always disappointed when I don’t win’, it was nonetheless a doggedly impressive performance in the face of adversity, and the Cullingworth ace could at least console himself in the knowledge that he had set a better fastest lap time than the two drivers who finished ahead of him and had closed the gap in the points standings to-boot, now lying a challenging fifth, just nine markers shy of third. Next on his radar, though, is the upcoming round of the WSK International Series – widely considered the most keenly-fought championship in Europe – at Salbris in France, a track at which Jack has not competed since 2006, and one where he has invariably been quick only to crash out of contention in his two previous outings. Bidding for third time lucky three years on as he aims to improve on his current fifth spot in the title chase, the former Junior Max Vice-World Champion, Junior Max European Champion and British ICC Vice-Champion is surely overdue a change in fortunes, and ready to take the fight to his big-reputation rivals as the only British driver competing at the very highest level. “I haven’t raced at Salbris for a while,” he mused, “but it’s a phenomenal circuit, a really fantastic place to go. I’m sure we will go well there. All the top guys will be there, but we’ve got a quite a few new things coming for the kart for that meeting, so I’m hoping they might allow us to take a step forward. We’re already up at the front, and if we can find that little bit extra – just two or three tenths – we’ll be really in the ball game and able to start challenging for top three positions on a regular basis. It’s promising. The championship is far from over, and if we can find just that bit more speed it will be game on!”
Hawksworth left ruing split-second lapse after ‘ballistic’ drive
The young Bradford star headed into the weekend chasing a strong result to boost his championship position, after running a challenging second in the grand final of the previous outing at Sarno in Italy only to be cruelly denied a chance to gun for glory when his chain snapped. Despite being an avowed fan of the fast and flowing nature of the popular Belgian circuit, however, and having been the architect of impressive drives there in the past, practice and qualifying would go far from according to plan. “The competition is never easy at WSK level because all the top guys and top teams are there,” Jack acknowledged, “but we knew we were fast so we were optimistic of getting a podium. Practice didn’t go too well, though; we just weren’t quick enough. We were about four or five tenths off throughout, and couldn’t get the chassis to work around the track at all. “Both my team-mate Paolo de Conto and I were on the absolute limit of what the chassis would do, and we just couldn’t do anything about it. We struggled throughout qualifying and the heats and weren’t able to shine or do the right times at all. As soon as it got warmer in the middle of the day we seemed to be out of it. “We knew we had the potential to be a lot faster but we just couldn’t get the pace out of the kart in those conditions, and when you’ve been at the front all year that’s very frustrating – but you’ve just got to stay professional about it and try to make it happen. All credit must go to the team – the guys worked so hard it’s unbelievable. We were thinking about it all day and night and doing everything we could to try and turn it around.” Indeed, there was much burning of midnight oil within the Energy Corse camp, with 23rd position in qualifying out of the 58 entries – seven tenths shy of the quickest – not where the Margutti Trophy winner is accustomed to being at all. The fact that he and de Conto set identical times to each other to the nearest thousandth of a second proved that both were getting the absolute maximum out of the kart that it was willing to give. With no finish better than ninth place in his three heat races, things were looking bleak for the 18-year-old, as he lined up a lowly 19th on the starting grid for the pre-final. And then, with impeccable timing, the heavens opened – and with the rain invariably a great leveller in encouraging talent to come to the fore, all of a sudden it was game on again. “It chucked it down not long before the start,” Jack recounted, “and in the one wet practice session we’d had up until then the kart had been perfect, so it was just a matter of getting into a good rhythm and going. I’ve always been good in the rain too, but the start was a bit crazy because Paolo directly in front of me on the grid made a bad start and I had to take to the grass to avoid him. That cost me a lot of positions and meant I was 25th at the end of the first lap. “After that, though, the kart was just ballistic! We were overtaking four people a lap at some stages and came through to fifth. We just had so much more traction than everybody else – they were all struggling for grip whereas I had loads of it. We could do the lap times consistently too, and with two more laps we could probably have had third. We were happy with fifth, though, and I thought the inside line would be the better place to start for the second final, but it didn’t work out that way...” Indeed, his pace was quite simply staggering, with the Cullingworth ace fighting his way into the top ten within just three laps, and by dint of lapping regularly half a second or more out of reach of anybody else on the track, he doggedly closed down a gap of some five seconds to fourth-placed Michael Ryall to just four hundredths of a second in the last six laps, drawing practically alongside at the chequered flag. Sauro Cesetti in third was just 1.7 seconds ahead at the close; had he had a couple more laps he would undoubtedly have passed both. From fifth on the grid for the grand final, hopes were high for an even better showing, but with the rain having abated and a dry line having appeared, it was suddenly a different ball game altogether. With all 34 KZ2 drivers out on slick tyres on a treacherous track surface, just the tiniest error would prove costly indeed – as, to his intense frustration, Jack found out. “I’m normally quite good in changeable conditions, so I was feeling confident,” he related. “I knew the track would be different to how it had been earlier in the day, but we had made changes to the set-up accordingly. We were on the wet side of the grid, so we dropped back to seventh at the start, but the kart was brilliant – just perfect throughout the race. We were coming through the field really fast and I passed Arnaud Kozlinski, Davide Forè and Sauro Cesetti and got into second. “There was just one dry line all the way around the circuit, though, and as soon as you touched a wet patch you’d be off. The karts have so much power for those conditions, and people were going off everywhere – as soon as you went off the dry line it was game over. (Reigning world champion) Marco Ardigò was four or five seconds ahead so I’m not sure whether or not I could have caught him, but we would definitely have been second – and then I took my eye off the ball for just a millisecond. I just lost concentration for a split-second at the end of the long straight, and it punished me. “I hit a wet patch at the hairpin and had to slow right down just to be able to get back onto the circuit again. In those conditions you need to be really smooth, keep calm and not push too hard, but after that I started pushing even harder to try and make up the ground I had lost and I hit another wet patch and then another. As soon as you make one mistake you then make more and more because you’re pushing harder and harder to catch back up again. I just lost my head basically. I felt like I had really let the team down to be honest.” The red mist may have proven to be his undoing, but his determination never to say die underlined just how hungry he is to succeed, and the team readily accepted his apology, knowing that but for his minor lapse, Jack would unquestionably have been the hero of the weekend, winner or runner-up. As it is, ninth position has consolidated his fifth spot in the title standings and best-placed Energy driver heading next to Salbris in France for round three of four – and having been quick there on two previous appearances only to be struck by misfortune, nobody would begrudge the former Junior Max Vice-World Champion, Junior Max European Champion and British ICC Vice-Champion were he to make it third time lucky. “We worked so hard to get up to the front and we achieved that,” he mused, reflecting on the Genk weekend as a whole. “We were just slicing through the pack in the rain – it was unbelievable. That proves the equipment is strong and that the team is doing a really good job. It was just a shame we couldn’t turn it into the result everyone deserved. “I know Salbris well; it’s really fast, and there’s one chicane that seems to go on for ages, like four corners in one! Obviously it will be different in KZ1, but I’m sure we can come back strong there. The chassis and engine should work really well there, and I think it will be really fun to drive in KZ. There are still a lot of points up for grabs, and if we win just one second final we can go to the top of the championship table straightaway. We’re still very much in the game.” The same can be said for the prestigious CIK-FIA European Championship, the second and last round of which takes place at Wackersdorf in Germany on June 27-28. Having been unceremoniously punted out of third place in the final of the curtain-raiser at La Conca earlier this year, Jack knows the pressure is on in what he describes as his biggest meeting of the season. “I’m confident,” he stated, “but the problem is we’re on the back foot because of the bad result we had in the first round in Italy. We know we are the fastest team in KZ2 in the championship, so the aim has to be to win both finals and then just see what happens. If we have just a bit of luck on our side this time, I think we can do it.”
Hawksworth ‘back in business’ as star of German show
Jack certainly did not enjoy the greatest build-up to the weekend, having been eliminated on the opening lap in the curtain-raising meeting at Oschersleben back in April when – following a victory and third place finish in his two heat races – he was unceremoniously shunted from behind at the start, putting him out of contention on the spot. Following that, there was a similarly disappointing outcome to his bid for glory in the prestigious CIK-FIA European Championship at La Conca in southern Italy. Having gone into the event as favourite to lift the laurels, the Energy Corse driver lived up to his billing in securing top three finishes in all five of his heats and set a trio of fastest laps to-boot, before being punted out of third place not far into the grand final. Heading to Wackersdorf, his outstanding success in the 20th edition of the Margutti Trophy just over two months earlier seemed a distant memory indeed. “We’ve had a few unlucky weekends recently, so I was really fired-up,” he underlined. “I was nowhere in the championship table after Oschersleben, so I had nothing to lose and everything to gain and definitely wasn’t planning on taking any prisoners!” Up against the likes of KZ2 class front-runners Manuel Renaudie, Thomas Mich, Jorrit Pex and Rick Dreezen, Jack overcame a lack of experience of the Bavarian circuit – having only been there once before, finishing a very competitive second in the ADAC German Championship three weeks previously despite struggling with tyre-warming issues – to prove to be rapidly on the leading pace in practice, but qualifying would be a different story. “We qualified tenth overall, which wasn’t too good,” he related. “We had been very fast in practice on old tyres, but when we put new rubber on for qualifying, for some reason we went backwards. We lost four or five tenths, but the team did a really good job to quickly adapt the chassis to the tyres and we solved the problem in time for the heats.” Beginning each of his three, 30-strong heat races fifth, the 18-year-old survived contact in the first of them that limited him to the same position at the chequered flag and took a brace of runner-up spots later on, earning him fourth on the grid for the sprint final – which he would win quite literally at a canter. “We were unbelievably competitive,” he acknowledged. “We barely needed to push throughout the race. I had expected it to be a lot tougher, because we hadn’t thought we’d have quite that much performance. The kart was superb from start to finish – one of those occasions where everything just clicks together and you’re able to drive away from everyone. I took the lead on lap two and then pulled out a really big gap. The race was red-flagged halfway through, but I was able to pull away again. “Unfortunately, the grand final didn’t go at all to plan. We had scored some good points in the first final, and we were aiming to get some more in the second – and I was very confident we could get the job done and win both races. My start was ok, but Mich alongside me made a really good one and got past into the lead. I wasn’t worried, though, because I knew we had set the kart up to come on more towards the middle and end of the race, so getting overtaken at the start wasn’t a disaster. “Verdi Geurts then passed me too on new tyres, but I had been almost half a second faster than both of them in the sprint, so I was still confident of being able to get the lead back. Then, on lap four, my team-mate Paolo de Conto must have missed his braking point or something, because he ran into the back of me at the first hairpin and took me off the circuit. That dropped me down to 30th and last, a quarter of a lap behind the field. He apologised afterwards and explained that it had just been a mistake, so there’s no point in holding any kind of grudge.” Admitting that the incident had been ‘character-building’ and ‘completely out of his hands’ – ‘that’s racing,’ he mused – Jack did well to fight his way back through the pack to 16th at the close, but still the end result was undeniably a frustrating one. The second-fastest lap time of the race only went to show what might have been, and the coming-together has left him just ninth in the title chase – far below where he had wanted to be. Nonetheless, the weekend at least proved that the former Junior Max Championship runner-up, Junior Max European Champion and British ICC Championship runner-up is bang on the pace, and he can return to Wackersdorf for the deciding round of the CIK-FIA European Championship at the end of the month in positive spirits – and knowing that there are more upgrades and improvements still to come. Insisting that – despite sitting only sixth in the standings – his chances of lifting the European KZ2 crown are ‘by no means over’, he is fully focussed on a double victory...and on current form it would be a brave man indeed to bet against him. “I’ve just got to get on with my job and keep trying to get results,” he concluded. “It was still pleasing to get back on the scoreboard with quite a big haul of points after all the bad luck of the previous races, and to be battling up at the front again was really good. We found a lot of pace in testing and over the weekend with some of the new things we tried, so I’m sure we’re going to bounce back. “I have faith in both myself and the team, and I believe we have the equipment at our feet to get the job done. I’m really determined now, and we will all be giving 120 per cent effort to finish on the top step of the podium. I expect us to be well-and-truly back in business at the next race – and very hard to beat!”
pics - Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net
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Jack
Hawksworth proved to himself that he can compete with the best after a
fiercely-contested CIK-FIA KZ1 Karting World Cup at Sarno where he
beating a Formula 1 star and only cruel ill-fortune prevented the young
Bradford driver from finishing inside the final top ten. .jpg)
Jack
Hawksworth suffered heartbreak in the final round of the prestigious
CIK-FIA European Championship at Wackersdorf in Germany as his
‘win-or-bust’ bid for glory failed to yield the hoped-for outcome – but
he returned to the country just a week later and put the memory firmly
behind him with a double rostrum finish in the hotly-fought DKM
Championship. 
Jack
Hawksworth was indisputably the fastest man on the track and produced a
quite simply stunning performance when the heavens opened in the latest
round of the hotly-contested 2009 WSK International Series at Genk, but
what he described as a ‘split-second’ lapse in concentration saw him
take the chequered flag just ninth when he knew he had the pace to bring
home the silverware. 
Young
Bradford karting pilot Jack Hawksworth has rebounded from a torrid few
weeks with a good performance in the second round of the German DKM
Championship at Wackersdorf – leaving all 65 of his international rivals
trailing in his wheeltracks in the sprint final for a victory that has
got his 2009 challenge right back on-track.