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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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James is seeking sponsors to help support him in 2010, and if you are interested in backing North Wales’ brightest young F1 hope, please contact his father Mark on 07795 297350 or at: gwyneddforklifts@ukf.net
To keep up with his latest career news and results, please visit: www.james-singleton.co.uk
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mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk Inspired Singleton storms through the field for top ten finish from back-of-the-grid
James travelled to the high-speed Oxfordshire circuit bullish about his chances of building upon the rostrum finish he had claimed the previous time out at Larkhall in Scotland. Qualifying would prove that his optimism was well-founded, as he revved his weekend into gear in the best possible fashion by setting the fastest time of anyone in his group to earn his highest starting position since the PF International curtain-raiser back in March. “I was feeling pretty confident because I know Shenington quite well and I’ve had good results there in the past,” he revealed. “It’s one of my favourite circuits, too – it’s a very technical, challenging track that’s quite hard to get right, and I like that. In practice we weren’t stunningly quick, but as the meeting went on we just got quicker and quicker and quicker and I was really pleased with qualifying. That’s such an important part of the weekend, because with the competition as close and as tough as it is in Super 1, if you have a bad session it really sets you back.” Embroiled in a fraught three-way scrap for supremacy in his opening heat race, James manoeuvred his way to the front only for his kart to fade in the closing stages and allow one of his pursuers to pip him to the line by the scant margin of eight hundredths of a second. Still, having been targeting merely the top five as he kept his focus on securing a decent grid spot for the first final, second place was a more-than-satisfactory outcome – and heat two should have yielded even better. “I started from pole, and led for the first lap until Oliver Hodgson and Matt Parry passed me into the bottom corner,” he recalled. “I then spent the next ten laps just sitting behind them biding my time. Once my kart came on properly I re-passed Hodgson for second, and then on the last lap Parry went defensive into the hairpin. I went out wide to try to get the run on him on the exit, and coming out of the hairpin I did to grab the lead – but he just drove me up the bank.” Third was the result this time, but the fastest lap of the race showed he had the pace to win. With his tail up, the Penmaenmawr driver prepared to begin the opening final from P4, his best starting spot of the year. Only he never even got to start. “Going into the chicane on the warming-up lap, the engine suddenly cut out and I had to pull off the track,” he rued. “I tried blowing the fuel, but it still wouldn’t go. I was a bit annoyed, because obviously it meant I had lost a lot of championship points – and given that the top five pulled away from the rest of the field in the race, I think I could definitely have been amongst them.” With the fault subsequently traced to a spark plug failure, the frustration in fact represented a double whammy, as the lack of points was compounded by James having to begin the second final from the very back of the grid in 30th place. Fired-up to banish his ill-fortune and take something solid away from the weekend, and entering the race with a ‘win-it-or-bin-it’, nothing-to-lose attitude, the 14-year-old made a superb start and dived down the inside of the first corner before bravely holding his nerve – and artfully holding onto his kart following a nudge from behind that knocked him briefly out-of-shape – around the outside of the second to conclude the opening lap 11th, a staggering 19-place gain on his grid spot. Wasting little time in latching onto the back of the leading pack, by lap three he was already up into the top ten. “Fortunately I had a good kart underneath me which I knew was fast,” James recounted. “That gave me a lot of confidence to be able to attack and overtake, and I was really on it as I came through the field and got as high as seventh. Towards the end the kart went off a little bit and I lost a position back to my team-mate and finished eighth, but still I was happy with the way I had come through.” Justifiably so, as the Ysgol Aberconwy pupil once more set fastest lap as he brilliantly scythed his way past his adversaries, pulling off some supremely bold moves along the way and taking the chequered flag closer to the race-winner than he had been at the end of the first lap – a sure sign of what might have been as he crowned a magnificent 22-place improvement on his starting position, far more than any of his competitors achieved. It is admittedly not often that a driver has reason to be especially pleased with eighth place, but on this occasion he could be proud of his performance . Having closed now to within just 16 points of his stated goal of eighth place in the title standings, the Coles Racing ace knows he has one last chance to attain his objective, at Three Sisters near Wigan in early October. Acknowledging that ‘it will take quite a lot’, James insists he will be giving it all he’s got and that he is ‘definitely up for it’. On the basis of his Shenington form, his rivals would do well to take note. pic: Les McLuckie
Singleton confirms British turnaround with starring Kartmasters showing
Buoyed by his Scottish success and with his tail up off the back of his timely confidence boost, James headed to Lincolnshire circuit PF prepared to pit himself against 41 Junior Max class rivals representing the very finest drivers in the country – all bidding to shine in what is widely-regarded as the toughest meeting of the year. His maiden Kartmasters appearance, the highly-rated young North Walian also faced the handicap of having to miss Thursday testing, but when he did at last take to the track, he was instantly on the leading pace. “I knew it was going to be rough, with some hard driving,” acknowledged the Conwy-based speed demon, “but other than that I didn’t really have much of an idea of what to expect. A lot of drivers find PF quite a boring circuit, but I enjoy it – the chicane and a number of other corners are very demanding to get right, and there’s pretty much always guaranteed to be carnage at the first hairpin, so you just have to try to dodge it.” Encouraged by his practice form and convinced he had the pace to vie for honours, the 14-year-old shrugged off the physically gruelling challenge of having to take on bigger and older adversaries in a class open to drivers aged up to 16, and if by his own admission he lacked aggression to begin with, he would come on in leaps and bounds as the weekend progressed. Sixth in his group in qualifying – a mere two tenths of a second adrift of the benchmark having crucially proven unable to take advantage of a tow – James professed himself happy with his Coles Racing kart and began both of his heat races from the fifth row of the grid. “In heat one I started tenth and tried to go around the outside of the first corner, but just as I was about to exit the first hairpin, someone drove over the side of my kart,” he related. “That dropped me down the order, but our pace was good and the momentum carried me back to ninth at the end. I was pleased with that, given that no-one would really work with anybody else to make up ground – as soon as you overtook someone, they would try to overtake you straight back again. We had still been able to prove the speed we had – and after that we knew we were fast enough, so it was just a case of trying to avoid the incidents. “In the first half of heat two I sat back and let it all happen, waiting for the kart to come on. On lap five it came on like a light bulb and was suddenly a lot grippier at the rear, which gave me a lot more confidence to go into the hairpins harder and try overtaking moves – it was just a question of timing them right. Unfortunately, in the Complex section in the last couple of laps I kept making little mistakes, which lost me exit speed and cost me places.” The upshot was P7 after he found himself unceremoniously muscled aside in the closing stages, when an excellent third position had been on the cards as James superbly passed both defending Kartmasters ‘GP’ plate-holder and current Formula Kart Stars Championship leader Ash Hand and reigning British Champion Matt Parry in an impressively feisty and assertive display, proving to be dynamite on the brakes into the first hairpin and betraying no fear at all in the heat of battle, despite the illustrious reputations of his adversaries. Fastest lap in the first heat only served to underline his optimism and conviction, whilst the post-heats discovery that the jetting had been ‘a mile out’ on the yellow-and-black #28 kart suggested he could have gone as much as two or three tenths quicker still. From ninth on the grid for the pre-final, the Ysgol Aberconwy pupil would go on to recover from an early assault on the opening lap to run as high as fifth – before cruel ill-fortune intervened as found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. “We were pretty fast again and could catch the front pack, but every time we did something would happen and I’d get spat out,” he recalled. “The field gradually spread out to leave several big gaps between karts, and for three laps I was by myself in sixth – but then I caught a backmarker heading into the chicane. “I thought she was going to stay where she was on the inside, but she cut across the track and across the racing line to the outside, and I just clipped the back of her kart, which sent me straight across the grass. I think she was trying to be helpful, but it had the opposite effect, unfortunately. Three drivers went past me, and I only had time to get one of them back again before the end. I wasn’t happy about that, and we knew we would consequently be starting on the outside for the grand final – but by then I just wanted to either go for it or go off. “I managed to slot in at the start, though I lost three or four places into the first hairpin when I got loaded from behind and pushed straight on. After that, the race settled down a bit and when the kart came on I just concentrated on moving forwards. I overtook and pulled away from Dominic Wheatley and Lewis Plato, and I then chased down George Williams and my team-mate Levi Coombs. “They started battling in the closing laps, which gave me the chance to catch them, and on the last lap fourth place came down to me and George. I thought I had enough of a gap going into the first hairpin for the last time, but unfortunately he managed to fill it from quite a way back and I couldn’t re-pass him before the end.” Nonetheless, a competitive fifth position at the chequered flag was an excellent result, and yielded a thoroughly well-deserved trophy. One to which James hopes to add over the coming months before the year is out. “It was good, exciting racing overall, and I was able to prove my potential by finishing as top Junior Max rookie in the grand final and by setting the fastest lap too,” he concluded. “Especially after the massive confidence boost of Larkhall, it really feels like my season is turning around in this country, and now I know we can be up there and that we can do it. We definitely went home happy.” Race meetings for every type of Masters car – at fantastic late summer/early autumn tracks and locations! As you begin to think about August summer holidays, don't forget to sort out your late summer/early autumn racing plans for the remainder of the Masters season. With some special racing opportunities, new circuits, new hotels and venues, and fresh ideas with Masters, it should be a fantastic end to the season!
Singleton vaults into top ten with ‘awesome’ podium return on Scottish soil
“I’ve learned a lot in terms of racecraft in Junior Max this year,” he acknowledged, “and Buckmore was a big confidence boost. Larkhall is one of my favourite circuits; the start is always very tricky and challenging, and I especially like the first corner – a long, sweeping left-hander – because you can make some good moves there. “If you make a mistake at Larkhall it really costs you, but equally if you are just half a tenth quicker than someone, you can easily pull out a gap because it’s difficult to get a tow with so many corners and not many straights. That makes it important to get the whole lap completely right.” Having competed in the Euro Max Challenge in Austria a week earlier, James initially struggled to re-adapt to the cooler temperatures and comparative lack of grip during Friday practice – and whilst myriad changes were made to his kart, nothing seemed to work, leading to a lot of head-scratching and midnight oil. Sixth spot in qualifying the following day proved that progress had irrefutably been made. “It had been boiling hot and therefore really grippy out in Austria, but at Larkhall I had to get used to locking the steering wheel and holding it in one place all the way round the corners again, because the kart was sliding around a lot and bogging down due to the lack of grip,” explained the Penmaenmawr speed demon. “It’s a huge difference driving in Britain compared to Europe, but at the end of the day we just tried to put all of that behind us and focus on getting everything right on Saturday. “After qualifying, we had finally got the kart set up right, so the rest of it was then down to me. In the first heat I made quite a good start from fourth, saw a gap around the outside and went for it. Ash Hand went for a move on the leader and I followed him through into second, and whilst I couldn’t quite keep with him after that I was able to pull away from the drivers behind. It was quite a boring race that just seemed to go on-and-on, but we were pleased with the result. “Going into Sunday, we knew we needed a top five finish from heat two to secure a decent grid position for the pre-final. I got a very good start and pushed the pole-sitter over the line to take second, and then going into the second corner he left just enough of a gap for me to be able to get through – but unfortunately, we had gone a little bit too high on the tyre pressures so the kart didn’t come on properly after that. “I had a good battle with Nathan Harrison for second place after he overtook me and I tried to get him back into the bottom corner, and we then went side-by-side down the straight. He hit my back wheel and we both went off, which meant I finished fourth but I was still quite happy with that. It did the job, and we had been up there on the pace and fighting again.” That much is indisputable, and the combination of his results from the heats earned James fourth on the grid for the pre-final, though an ‘awful’ start as he found himself pushed over the grass – ‘you can lose so much ground at Larkhall just by getting hung out to dry on the outside line...last year I qualified second there and came out of the first corner in eighth,’ he revealed – cost him crucial time and places, from where he fought grittily back to sixth at the chequered flag. Another lonely race in parts it might have been, but the start to the grand final later in the day would prove to be more than a little chaotic. “There was a gap going into the first corner again and I filled it,” recalled the 14-year-old Ysgol Aberconwy pupil. “Matt Parry then tried to get in and we squeezed each other all the way along the grass, and his front bumper got stuck in my rear bumper and forced me straight on. That cost me a couple of places, but then Parry and Andy King came together which allowed me to come back past both of them, and I gained another place when Nathan Harrison’s chain came off – all in one lap! “I ended the first lap second, but Oliver Hodgson overtook me on lap three and I then got into a fight with Parry and Sean Babington over third. We started to catch the two leaders because they were battling with each other, but on the penultimate lap Parry and Babington came together and went over the top of each other, which put me third. After that I backed off, because I wasn’t under any pressure from behind and just wanted to make sure I made it to the end.” Anything but a lonely or boring race this time, the outcome also represented James’ first rostrum finish of the campaign in Super 1 – another timely injection of confidence and a result that means the Coles Racing driver has hauled himself up from 19th in the points standings two meetings ago to tenth, with two outings remaining at Shenington in Oxfordshire and Three Sisters near Wigan and a real spring in his step. “I was over-the-moon,” he enthused, buoyant about his prospects now as he summed up his Scottish adventure. “I had been desperate for that podium position towards the end of the race, and it was just awesome to finally be up there again – it made up for all the bad luck we’ve suffered this year, and proved that all the hard work has paid off. “The last two rounds will take place at probably two of my best tracks – I’ve always been pretty quick at Shenington, and Wigan is one of my ‘local’ circuits. We are looking forward to both of them, to try to score some more good points – and, who knows, maybe even a win...” pics Les McLuckie
Singleton keeps himself on-track for the big prize in Austrian adventure
James headed into the weekend ready to pit himself against the Junior Rotax class talent on the European stage – and he would be on the pace and amongst the very front-running contenders right. “We approached Bruck quite confidently,” revealed the Conwy-based hotshot. “The first time I saw the track was in practice, and I really enjoyed it – I think it suited my driving style well. It was difficult to learn, though, because some of the corners are fast and flowing and others are tight and really bumpy, which slows the kart down a lot. You really need to get the lines absolutely right, because it’s easy to come off there – but it only took us about three sessions to get up-to-speed. “We changed an axle before qualifying, but unfortunately with the track getting hotter it didn’t pay off. The kart was digging in and just didn’t feel as lively, which left us down in tenth. That was a shame, because in the last practice session before qualifying we had been the quickest of anyone and looking really good, so I think we could have been in the top three but for that – and maybe even fought for pole. Still, it was worth trying that axle because we hadn’t tested it before and we knew where we were after that.” Indeed, tenth spot out of the 47 entrants was nothing to be ashamed of, and still feeling optimistic, James converted P6 on the starting grid into third and fourth place finishes in two of his three heat races. Unfortunately, someone else’s accident at the start of his other heat left the him 14th in the intermediate rankings, though setting the fastest time again in the Sunday morning warm-up was a timely lift. “We had a choice of putting our new tyres on for the pre-final or saving them for the final itself,” James went on, “and we chose to use them in the pre-final to try and get up the field quicker and score some good points. We’d already had good finishes in the finals in the previous two rounds, so most of all we needed a good pre-final this time. We were hoping for the top five, but from 14th we knew that was going to be tough. “I made a good start and came out of the first corner in tenth, and after that I just kept the momentum going. It’s very difficult to overtake at Bruck, with so few passing opportunities meaning the pressure is on to get it right each time you make a move – because if you don’t get by successfully on one lap, you might have to wait another whole lap before you get the chance again. “I kept going forwards each lap until I was fifth, though, and then near the end fourth place was three or four kart-lengths in front of me – and I knew I had to beat him for the extra points. Fortunately, my kart came on at just the right time and I caught and passed him on the penultimate lap and was then just able to pull away. We were over-the-moon to get fourth, and knew afterwards that the hardest part of the weekend was out of the way, so I wasn’t overly stressed going into the final.” Indeed, with the regulations stating that from the four meetings, each competitor must drop one final and one pre-final from their results sheet come season’s end, P4 meant James could strike off the 19th place he had salvaged from 44th in the intermediate rankings in the Salbris curtain-raiser in France – and complemented the similar fourth position he had achieved in round two at Wackersdorf in Germany. In the final, an early coming-together, after he went for an overtaking move on the driver ahead only to find the door slammed shut in his face, sent him off the track and left him a lap down, with little real hope of any great improvement from there. To his immense credit, however, he never let himself get demoralised or demotivated, and once showed a turn-of-speed on a par with the leaders. “That kind of situation is very disappointing, because you have to just run round on your own at the back when you know you’ve got the pace to be up at the front,” he mused, “but we kept on fighting to the finish to pick up a few points so that if anything does go drastically wrong at Genk, at least we will have that – and we managed to come past a few people along the way, so it wasn’t all bad. We can still do it.” Genk is the scene of the fourth and final Euromax outing in early September, where all will be decided, and the demanding Belgian circuit is something of a home-from-home for James, having competed there twice before in the Formula Kart Stars Championship. The top three in the points table come the end of the weekend will progress on to do battle in the Rotax Grand Finals at La Conca in Italy in November, and with his brace of fourth places in the pre-finals to-date and a second and a seventh from the finals, the Coles Racing driver will enter the meeting sitting seventh overall and third on dropped scores. “I’m going to train hard and go and do some testing out there, because I really want to win,” he concluded. “We want that ticket to the Grand Finals! I know I’m quick at Genk, and it’s a drivers’ track that’s quite tight and technical and tough on braking, which is a challenge I enjoy. Going into the corners, you really need to brake hard, rather than the emphasis being on exit speed – and if you don’t get that right, you can lose as much as half a second a lap. I want to win there, but I have the championship in-mind too, so points will be very important.” An appearance in the Rotax Grand Finals could just be a significant stepping-stone in his career and a major addition to his CV – and as a postscript, it would be wise to remember that the last time James Singleton raced at Genk, he won.
Singleton defies predictions with European podium to set his season back on-track
James headed to Germany encouraged by a superb rostrum finish in the Euro Max Winter Cup at Campillos in Spain and an incredible charge through the field from a lowly 44th into seventh place in the opening round of the campaign at Salbris in France. Equally, however, that enthusiasm was tempered by the knowledge that despite having proven rapid indeed in the British Super 1 Series – an outstanding pole position in the PF International curtain-raiser and fifth on the grid last time out at Whilton Mill are ample testament to that – power difficulties and sheer ill-fortune had repeatedly stymied his efforts to notch up a solid result. “We’ve had so many problems with the engine recently that we didn’t really know how competitive we would be going into the weekend,” the Conwy hotshot candidly acknowledged. “The track is awesome, though! It’s really technical and you have to be inch-perfect into every corner; if you get dust onto your tyres, it can cost you up to half a second a lap for three laps. “It’s crucial to get the corners right, and it took us probably two sessions to try and figure out the lines. Then it turned wet and it was the same thing all over again... The track was really slippery in the wet, with karts going off everywhere – especially at the hairpins. People were just burying it into the tyres. “The conditions were really unpredictable. As soon as we changed the set-up for the dry it would rain, and vice-versa; it was on-and-off constantly, which was a bit of a nightmare, especially with such short periods of time to make alterations in-between races – it was a constant panic to try to get the kart ready all the time!” Fast in practice, the Penmaenmawr-based driver went on to qualify an excellent fourth amongst the 43-strong Junior Max field, just a tenth off the fastest time outright, though he mused that it could potentially even have been pole but for having had to overtake another kart on his quickest effort. That left him to start each of his three heat races from P2. In the first of them James triumphed by barely a gnat’s whisker, following a fraught and frantic scrap over the top spot with the four leading drivers blanketed by a scant half a second; it was a similar story in heat two in which he finished a close third, artfully staving off the advances of the reigning world champion along the way despite grappling with handling and grip issues; and in heat three, the Coles Racing ace made a break for it at just the right moment with two laps to go to leave his pursuers duelling in his wake and prevail by a little over two seconds, thereby securing second spot in the intermediate rankings and the same position on the pre-final starting grid. “If you weren’t in the top three or four, there was no chance of getting to the front because the leading group always pulled away,” he recounted of the heats. “Being in the tow around Wackersdorf is crucial, but that also makes it quite hard to break away from people. I was only able to get a gap at the end of the first heat because the two drivers behind me started battling, but as soon as they stopped that and worked with each other they caught me straightaway. I really had to defend coming off the last corner because they were right on my bumper... “Still, two wins in the heats left us feeling pretty confident for the finals if it stayed dry. I was looking forward to them, but when I woke up on Sunday and saw it was raining my heart sank, because we hadn’t been too quick in the wet during practice. After a bad start in the pre-final I came back through and was catching the leader, but as soon as I caught him there was contact into the hairpin and I came off worse and dropped down the order. I fought back through to fourth in the end, but I was still a little frustrated about what had happened. “Going into the grand final we were confident because we knew then that we were fast in the wet after the adjustments we had made to the kart for the pre-final, and it was a lot wetter as well because the rain had turned torrential in-between the two races. I pushed the pole-sitter over the line at the start and got into second. I couldn’t quite get the power down early enough coming off the corners, though, and after about five laps he was able to break the tow and get away. “The conditions were really difficult, with karts aquaplaning all over the place, and that made it really tense as I knew I had to be really early onto the brakes into the corners – if I had overshot just one of them, that would have been it. The sun was shining onto the track as well, and because a dry line was developing it was starting to rip the tyres up. It was really slippery, and towards the end I knew the driver behind me wasn’t that far back, so it was crucial not to make a mistake. The pressure was definitely on.” It was pressure with which James coped admirably, as he hung on beautifully by just over a second-and-a-half to clinch the runner-up spoils at the end of a magnificent showing, ahead of both the reigning British and World Champions for the second time this season to-boot. An injection of confidence just when he needed it the most, the outcome has vaulted the Ysgol Aberconwy pupil into fourth in the title standings on dropped scores – and now with a very clear objective. “I was really pleased with second place,” he enthused in conclusion. “I would never have believed I’d end up there before the weekend. I had been hoping for the top ten – I certainly never expected to be on the podium, so it was a pretty awesome result! Now I want to stay consistently in the top five every time, to finish the season inside the top three overall and get through to the World Finals – and after this weekend, I think we can do it!” pic Bas Kaligis Sensational Singleton storms through the field to beat British and World Champions!
With his confidence boosted off the back of a superb international debut in the hotly-contested Winter Cup at Malaga in Spain – in which he had stormed to pole position up against the very best of global talent at Junior Rotax level, and followed that up with a podium finish on race day – James travelled across the Channel in optimistic mood. “The circuit is great!” enthused the highly-rated North Walian. “It’s really fast and flowing, and you need to have good co-ordination to go well around there because it’s easy to make a mistake, and when you do the kerbs are really close to the tyre walls – so you’re driving just inches away from disaster all the time! That makes it really hard to get right! “The competition in the Winter Cup had been really tough, so we were on a real high for Salbris after that. We were well on it straightaway in practice and really fast – two tenths up the road from anyone else which was a bit of a surprise. I thought I’d need to find my way around a bit first, but Ukyo Sasahara was following me around on Wednesday!” Given that Sasahara is the defending world champion and Winter Cup winner, if that wasn’t an endorsement of James’ pace, then nothing would be. Having been so quick in the dry, however, the unwelcome and unexpected onset of rain on Thursday sent the 14-year-old’s preparations spiralling right off-track – and the heavens would not truly relent again until the end of the weekend. “Unfortunately, we were out in the slower session when hail showers hit the track,” the Conwy-based ace recounted of qualifying, “so whilst I was fifth-fastest in my group which was pretty good, that only equated to 20th overall when normally it would have been inside the top ten. We couldn’t quite get the set-up or tyre pressures right in the wet, probably because we hadn’t had enough previous testing time in those conditions. “I started all of my heats from tenth, and I was just hoping to get some good results to set myself up well for the finals – but not one of them went right! In heat one I made a fairly good start, but then approaching the first corner someone made a slight mistake in front of me and spun round into me. That knocked me down ten places, and it was hard to fight my way back through again from there.” A perhaps appropriately unlucky 13th at the chequered flag, that result, however, would prove to be relatively fortunate in comparison with what followed, with a coming-together leading to an early bath in heat two and a snapped chain that catapulted itself straight through the Coles Racing drover’s radiator on the warming-up lap for heat three leading to one failure to finish and one failure even to start. “It was chaos!” he acknowledged. “In the second heat I got a really good start up to fifth, and then I got to the long sweeper at the bottom of the circuit and tried to go up the inside of someone – but I don’t think he saw me and he turned in. That spun me round, after which somebody else collected me and went straight over the top of my kart which took my radiator off. Then two laps later one of the wheels fell off!” His woes during the heats left him an unrepresentative 44th of the 47 competitors in the intermediate rankings, and right down towards the back of the grid for the second-chance repêchage, not by any stretch of the imagination what he had envisioned four days earlier during practice. With only six of the 19 participants able to progress through to the finals, the pressure was on with a vengeance – but in what was undeniably a nerve-wracking situation, James kept his nerve. Overcoming a deluge, being spun round on the opening lap and a red flag that meant he had to climb through the field all over again, he ultimately came in an excellent fifth – and with it assured himself of a place in the pre-final, which he would begin from 33rd out of 34. “The goal was simply to keep it on-track, move forwards and get a better starting position for the grand final to have a good chance of picking up some points,” he explained, though greasy conditions once again did not make things easy. “Our aim this year is to finish in the top three in the championship to be able to progress through to the World Finals, so consistency is key. “I got a brilliant start and was up to 15th within a couple of corners – I was over-the-moon with that! Unfortunately, I then went for the same move I had tried before in the second heat into the long sweeper – with the same result. That put me off the track and earned me a telling-off from my team, but I learned my lesson for the grand final and didn’t try it again! “We knew our pace hadn’t been the best in the pre-final and the kart still wasn’t handling that well in the wet, so we were just hoping to get a good start in the grand final and then progress from there. I got spat out a bit in the second hairpin, which cost me a few positions, but after that I just got my head down and moved forwards. We had changed the set-up a bit since the pre-final and our pace was better, and we ended up seventh. “We were really pleased with that, and we didn’t come out of the meeting with a bent chassis either, unlike some other drivers! As we progress through the season now the goal is to move up the order – and I’m only going to get stronger.” That much seems indisputable, and the fact that James finished ahead of both Sasahara and 2009 British Champion Jack Barlow was encouraging indeed for the remainder of the Euro Max campaign. To come through from virtually last place following the heats to a top ten finish in the grand final was a magnificent and quite unprecedented achievement – though in round two at Wackersdorf in Germany, the teenager admitted he hopes he will not have to pull off quite the same recovery drive. Pic: PI-Racing Inspired Singleton kick-starts Euro career with podium finish – and world champion-beating form
Having broken through as a genuine challenger for a British title in 2009 by finishing third in both Super 1 and fellow national championship Formula Kart Stars (FKS), James has stepped up a notch in 2010 and will be competing in the Euro Max Challenge on foreign shores. The Winter Cup marked the annual pre-season warm-up. “We were hoping for a top ten finish,” the 14-year-old recounted. “The competition was very high, with some very experienced drivers out there. A lot of the others had already been out tyre-testing during the week too, whereas we had to go straight into it blind, which immediately put us at a bit of a disadvantage. The tyres they use in Europe are quite different from those we have in the UK, and don’t warm up as quickly when you leave the pits which means they’re not as grippy initially. “The track is brilliant, with great facilities. It’s really fun to drive, and because the kerbs are quite low down they’re easy to ride. I thought the layout looked quite simple when I first saw it, but when you’re out there in the kart it no longer seems as straightforward as when you’re just walking round it! It’s a long lap as well, which made it very important to save your tyres during the races. “There was one thing that took us completely by surprise, though – having gone out there expecting it to be nice and sunny, it ended up raining and pretty horrible for most of the meeting! It hammered it down at times, and it was so bad on Saturday that they actually had to call the day off early.” If the rain was enough to contend with during James’ acclimatisation to the 1.6km Circuito Campillos and the Vega tyres, a breakdown in the opening practice session cost him valuable track time. The meeting had 41 Junior Rotax class drivers in attendance, headed by reigning world champion Ukyo Sasahara, the Japanese inarguably the man to beat and in qualifying that’s what Singleton. “On the Wednesday morning when we first went out we were nothing special really and we thought we had no chance of getting pole position,” related the Penmaenmawr ace, before revealing that within just four sessions he had expertly hauled himself right onto the front-running pace. “Throughout practice we just got closer and closer and closer – and by qualifying we were the fastest! “I was over-the-moon to beat the world champion, and it was quite a relief too, because being on pole obviously gives you a massive advantage heading into the first corner, as provided you make a good start, you will be out of reach of any trouble that might break out behind. After that, we knew we had both the racecraft and pace – so we were out to go for the win!” It was a superb way to announce his arrival on the European stage, but the first two heats the following day would throw another variable into the equation, as the rain that had been absent during qualifying resurfaced with a vengeance and transformed the circuit into something more akin to a skating rink than a race track. That being the case, James’s second and third-place finishes were a very solid achievement. “People were coming off all over the place,” James admitted, “and the front of the kart was just pushing on everywhere – you had to really be in control of it or else you’d be off. We weren’t as quick in the wet as we had been in the dry, so we thought if we could just finish in the top three that would be great – and we did!” Far happier with the dry weather on the Sunday morning for his remaining heat and the two finals, the Coles Racing driver dominated heat three, leaving his pursuers, including reigning British Champion Jack Barlow,– to squabble over the scraps in his wheeltracks. Such was James’ pace, nearly 0.7secs up on everyone else, that he was able to back off in the closing stages to preserve his tyres for the finals and still win by just under 5 seconds. The result also represented a timely confidence boost ahead of the pre-final, which he would begin second. “I got into the lead and started to pull away in the middle part of the race,” he recalled, “but Barlow caught me again towards the end; unfortunately, I made a little mistake on the second-to-last lap and gave him a chance to get through. We were close all the way through, but we could see that we clearly hadn’t moved on as much as some other drivers had set-up wise, and they had caught us up.
“As my kart went off again in the closing stages, Barlow began to catch me back up, and going down towards the bottom corner on the penultimate lap I over-defended and he was able to come up my inside. He pushed me right out onto the grass, which left me with no chance of trying to fight back.” It was undeniably a frustrating and disappointing way to end what had been otherwise a stellar weekend, but nonetheless third place was a magnificent accomplishment, and one that proved that James will be a threat all the way through the Euro Max campaign. As a calling card, it was a potent one. “We hadn’t expected to finish third, that’s for sure,” the Ysgol Aberconwy pupil mused in conclusion. “We were really pleased with that, and hopefully we can do it again during the season – and who knows, maybe snatch the odd win along the way too... It felt great to be up there on the podium – it always does.” On present form, seeing James Singleton up on the podium is something his rivals ought to perhaps start getting used to... pics: RGMMC
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Hot
on the heels of his first podium finish of the campaign in Britain in
the fiercely-contested national Super 1 Series at Larkhall in Scotland,
James Singleton proved that he has turned a corner on home turf in 2010
with a brilliantly aggressive front-running performance throughout the
blue riband Kartmasters outing at PF International.
James
Singleton has been repeatedly stymied by bad luck on home turf in 2010,
but the North Wales kart driver banished that with a vengeance when the
national Super 1 Series travelled north of the border to Larkhall – with
a superb podium finish to vault himself into the top ten in the .jpg)
James
Singleton might have endured mixed fortunes in the third round of the
2010 Euro Max Challenge at Bruck in Austria, but a brilliant performance
just when he needed it the most has kept the young North Wales driver
firmly in with a shout of progressing on to one of the most prestigious
meetings on the international karting calendar.
James
Singleton admitted that he had been ‘hoping for the top ten’ in the
third round of the hotly-contested 2010 Euro Max Challenge at
Wackersdorf in Germany following a torrid and luckless run on home turf
of late – but by dint of an inspired performance in conditions that were
anything but easy..jpg)
James
Singleton produced a mesmerising performance in the opening round of the
2010 Rotax Max Euro Challenge at Salbris in France to put a run of
ill-fortune successfully behind him and gain a staggering 37 places
between the heats and the grand final for a strong top ten finish on
European soil – and get the better of both the reigning British and
World Champions into the bargain.
James
Singleton travelled over to Spain for the 2010 Euro Max Rotax Winter Cup
at Malaga abd by the time he left none of his rivals were in any doubt
that the youngster from North Wales will be a main contender in 2010.
“I
made another small mistake at the start of the grand final and fell back
a couple of places, but then the kart came on around lap three and I
caught and passed Barlow and Harry Crawley to move into second. I pulled
a little bit of a gap out over them, but the leader had already opened
up a big advantage.