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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 all Jordan’s latest career news and results, please visit: www.jordanking.co.uk kart pics: Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net |
mail your news to editorthegrid@yahoo.co.uk King signs off in style with entertaining karting swansong
After conceding in the build-up that whilst he had invariably been quick at La Conca in southern Italy, he had rarely enjoyed much good fortune there, Jordan confessed that ‘as it was my last race in karts I was obviously really keen to win, but the main thing was just to get a good, strong result and enjoy the weekend to end on a high’. Having missed Thursday testing, Jordan was thrown straight in at the deep end up against some 57 KF2 class rivals from around the globe, but in the wet on Friday he was immediately inside the top three. In a closely-matched field in which every tenth of a second counted, ninth in qualifying represented a very solid start. “We were there or thereabouts and close enough to the pace,” he mused. “We were still playing catch-up in the heats, but our speed got better in each one. In the third heat, we set the fastest lap; I got knocked off onto the grass at the start and came back from 15th to fifth – I was really pleased with the pace we had. There are three or four places around the lap at La Conca where you can overtake, but it was hard because the entire field was separated by just two tenths of a second or so.” A trio of very solid results – two fourths and a fifth, with a better fastest lap time than the winner on each occasion, left Jordan sixth on the pre-final starting grid, and very much in with a fighting chance. “That was a tough race,” he recollected, “but also probably one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever been in, because there were so many different leaders. We could perhaps have finished a bit higher, but ninth wasn’t a disaster and our speed was good again – it was just that some things didn’t quite fall our way.” Lapping comfortably quicker than the race-winner Jordan wound up less than three seconds down on the winner in the pre-final in an extremely tight front-running pack – but then in the grand final things would swiftly go awry. “I got up to fourth, and then my team-mate knocked me off,” he rued. “When we got back to the awning after the race, the atmosphere wasn’t the best! That dropped me down the order to 11th, and again, as everyone was so close on lap times, it was hard to come back through and regain ground. I was catching the group ahead by maybe a tenth of a second a lap, and towards the end there was a massive battle. It was really hard and I finished ninth again – but if I hadn’t been knocked off, I could have won. It was that close...” In a photo-finish in which the leading ten contenders were blanketed by a mere three seconds, a flurry of frantic place-swapping turned the last lap into a veritable lottery. The statistics, however, ably bear Jordan’s conviction out, as he lapped faster than the top two and set a best effort a scant six hundredths off the quickest outright. Concluding that ‘it ended on a sort-of high...it was good to be fast and to finish on an exciting note with two such fun races, but I was just a bit disappointed that it didn’t quite go our way’, the PSR-run hotshot was left afterwards to reflect upon a year of mixed fortunes on the international stage, during which he had overcome a shaky start to benefit from a mid-season team switch and come back fighting, picking out an outstanding victory at Castelletto in Italy and an impressive podium at Portimão in Portugal as notable highlights. “It was my rookie in KF2, so it was always going to be hard,” he mused, “but if you compare how we did against other first-year drivers in the class, we were probably the best overall, which was pleasing. It’s a really tough class in terms of the competition and a pretty big step-up from KF3; it’s not so much the speed, but the fact that the racing is just so much harder and completely different. I’ve learned a lot, though, and it was encouraging to do so well and to leave karting off the back of some decent performances and results.”
King proves speed and gains experience as Winter Series wraps up
“Pembrey is a challenging and enjoyable circuit to drive and a good circuit to test at,” explained the highly-rated young Warwickshire star, “but racing-wise it isn’t great, because it’s really difficult to overtake. I felt pretty confident going into the weekend, though, because we had been quick in testing. We were actually the quickest of anyone in one of the wet sessions on Friday – that was definitely a boost, because it proved to everyone that even at such an early stage, I can be up at the front – but to be honest, I was happy whatever the weather.” On a damp-but-drying track surface in qualifying on Saturday, however, Jordan – and all of his Manor Competition team-mates, unfortunately missed the best of the conditions and as such wound up significantly further down the timing screens than he had anticipated, with the King left to start race one from 16th position. Undeterred he would be the architect of a drive through the field that culminated in him overtaking his team-mate Josh Hill to snatch a superb sixth place on the penultimate lap. “The whole team struggled in qualifying,” Jordan conceded. “We didn’t get the timing right in terms of when the track was at its best; in that kind of situation, it’s all about being out at the right time – and if you aren’t, you’ll be a long way down the order... “Our speed was really good in the race, but the problem is that once you get close to the car in front, you can’t go any quicker than them because of all the aerodynamic grip – so to pass ten drivers in 20 laps I thought was pretty good! It was good fun coming through, and just a shame there aren’t a few more overtaking opportunities around Pembrey, because if there had been I could definitely have finished inside the top five.” Admitting that his form had been ‘encouraging and frustrating at the same time’ – since had he started further up the grid, he might well have been able to do battle for the podium – the fact that the 16-year-old took the chequered flag as the leading Manor driver having begun behind all three of his team-mates spoke volumes. Sadly, race two would not last anything like as long. “I made really good starts the whole weekend, and this time I got up to ninth,” he recounted. “Then, going into lap three, several drivers in front of me all stacked up together on the inside on the entry to the first hairpin, so I went out wide to try to get the cut-back on them on the exit, but there was an incident ahead and two cars came to a complete stop. “I came out of the hairpin travelling a lot quicker, and when someone moved over a little bit to avoid the accident, my front wing tagged his rear wheel, went underneath my car and punctured one of my tyres. That was a shame, because we could definitely have had another top six finish.” That much seems indisputable, but after qualifying a best-yet of 11th the following day – a mere six tenths of a second adrift of the benchmark – Sunday’s races would swiftly degenerate into disaster. Finding himself sent bouncing over the kerb by a rival in the first of them knocked his front wing askew loosing a lot of aerodynamic grip and consequently speed. To rub salt into the wounds, another driver then got one of his front wheels tangled with one of Jordan’s rear wheels and spun him round, whilst a similarly over-ambitious manoeuvre by a different adversary did for his chances in the weekend’s final encounter . “The basic speed is there,” he concluded, “and progress has been made in other areas, too, so that’s all good – I’m just disappointed we didn’t manage to get any decent results, as such. Doing the Winter Series paid off in terms of building my experience, though, and more testing will help us to find the last couple of tenths that we need – and then hopefully, if we can get qualifying sorted in time for the main season next year, we’ll be able to start winning some races...” pic Jakob Ebrey photography King’s Formula Renault debut a bruising experience – but yields ‘a lot of positives’
Having been forced to skip testing the previous week due to a prior commitment – the successful conclusion of his 2010 international karting campaign in Egypt – Jordan found himself at an immediate disadvantage when he arrived at Snetterton, with his only previous track time around the Norfolk circuit having come in older machinery and a year earlier. After working his way down to a time just tenths away from the leading runners during pre-weekend practice and reporting that ‘everything was sweet’, the Warwickshire racerr then bolted on a new set of rubber on Thursday and was looking even quicker. Unfortunately, pushing just a little too hard, too soon on tyres that weren’t yet fully up to temperature, he lost control of his Manor Motorsport machine at the end of the back straight and it spat him off across the grass. “I was confident in the speed we had,” the 16-year-old revealed, “but equally I knew it was going to be difficult and that I couldn’t underestimate anyone, so I was just aiming to go into it and give it my all. It took me a few laps initially to re-acclimatise to the circuit, and to re-adjust from karting the previous weekend. I like Snetterton; it looks fairly simple on paper, but it’s actually quite difficult to master. “The accident really shook me up, though – my back, neck and ribs are still hurting now – and with losing track time as a result it meant we were a further half-a-day down on everyone else, on top of what we had missed the previous week. We had been looking really good pace-wise until then, but the accident just knocked my confidence and dropped me down into the middle of the field. “It was hard to get back into it again on Friday – both mentally and physically – and with my body hurting, that made it a lot harder driving, too. I reckon it cost me about a second in terms of lap time – a couple of tenths through one corner, which costs you another tenth down the following straight and so on. It wasn’t a massive amount of time in any one place, but it all adds up over a complete lap.” In a field as close as it was – with 25 drivers all eager indeed to impress –Jordan was a long way down the order. Still, on a wet-but-drying track surface in qualifying, he looked on-course for a top six starting spot when he hit traffic on his final flying lap just as conditions were at their best, leaving him only 15th and 17th on the grid for the two races respectively. Despite this he remained bullish about his prospects for the races. “In the first race the track was still slightly damp at the start, and I went up the inside into the first corner into about tenth place, but because that put me on the wetter line I lost grip and fell back down to 15th again,” he recounted. “I then gained a few positions, and after there was a safety car period I settled into 11th and just stayed there to the end – it was good to finish and to have made some progress. “It was useful to learn about the aero on the Formula Renault in racing conditions, too. When you get up behind another driver, you really do lose a lot of grip. When you’re watching F1 for example on TV, you think it can’t be that hard to overtake, but when you’re in a car with aero grip yourself, you realise that it does genuinely make quite a lot of difference being in another car’s dirty air. “In the second race there weren’t that many places I could go at the start to make up ground and I ended the first lap 16th, but later on our pace picked up and I began to catch people. The safety car came out again which bunched the whole field right up, and after that our speed was really good and I was able to overtake a few other drivers and finished tenth. By the end of the race we were really quick – I set my best lap time on the very last lap.” This left Jordan a respectable tenth in the points standings and an excellent second amongst his fellow ‘rookies’ as he heads to Pembrey for the final round. Preparing to rejoin the fray 100 per cent fighting fit, the clear goal is to put in a much stronger performance – and correspondingly come away with a much stronger result. “By the end of the weekend, I was feeling a lot more confident in the car and our speed had definitely recovered quite a bit,” he mused on reflection. “I was much closer again to the level I had been at before the shunt, so there were a lot of positives to come out of it all. “The team are really behind me and I get on very well with my engineer, Tony; it’s hard for me with my lack of experience in cars, but it really helps that he knows exactly what he’s doing and how to approach things to enable me to move forwards. “It’s good having four drivers in the team, too, because we can all share data and set-up information with each other and try more things out on the car, and we all push each other on, as well. Everyone in the team apart from me has had three years in cars, so they have a lot more experience than I do and I can learn from that. They’re good benchmarks for me – and so far, I think I’m doing quite well relative to them. “At Pembrey, I would like to improve upon the results I had at Snetterton, and I think we will be a lot nearer to the pace. Hopefully I can have a good qualifying session this time and start inside the top ten, and then aim for a single-digit finish in all four races. It will be important to be consistent, and it would be nice to end up as top rookie, too...” Pic: Jakob Ebrey Photography
King left to reflect on new experiences and places – as he prepares to discover even more
The finale of the inaugural WSK World Series took place at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt – both a circuit and a country that, like the preceding rounds in Portugal and the USA, Jordan had never previously visited. An engine seizure in qualifying that left him last-but-one on the grid for all three of his heat races and on the back foot from thereon in did not get proceedings off to the greatest of starts. “It’s a good track, bumpy in places but fun to drive,” the 16-year-old revealed. “There are a few banked corners, too, which are a lot quicker than normal corners – and in other parts it was quite tight-and-twisty.” The latter characteristics did not make it an easy circuit at which to make progress from a lowly starting position – compounded by which, Jordan explained, ‘it was really dusty off-line, which meant that whenever you overtook someone you would both lose a lot of time...kind of like taking one step forward to go two steps back’. Whilst never far from the outright pace, in his opening heat race Jordan found himself unexpectedly run into by an errant rival on the rolling-up lap, leaving him in 14th at the chequered flag – and then in heat two, the very same driver edged him onto the grass no sooner had the starting lights gone out. In the circumstances, ninth place was a remarkable recovery effort, whilst heat three yielded tenth. A second engine failure in Sunday morning’s warm-up session – something of an unfortunate theme to the weekend – offered Jordan scant encouragement ahead of the pre-final, which he would begin 11th. “We got a good start, and for the first five laps or so our pace was quite good, but then midway through we dropped off a bit,” he recounted. “We improved again towards the end, but by then the gap ahead was just too big to close back up and I finished eighth. In the grand final I then got a really good start up into sixth, but after that just slowly went backwards.” Whilst 11th spot at the close was not how he had wanted to wind up the season – and perhaps also his karting career, barring one last possible meeting later this month – it nonetheless proved enough to lift Jordan from seventh in the championship table to sixth, no mean feat at all when you consider that he was up against. With a full-time graduation into cars in the Formula Renault UK Winter Series now literally just around the corner, the Princethorpe College student and Hugo Boss brand ambassador was quick to praise his loyal mechanic Stuart Wright and the Piers Sexton-run PSR outfit to which he had switched mid-season, and whose expertise he credits with helping him to get the best out of his driving and fulfil his potential. “It was up-and-down really,” he mused of his WSK World Series fortunes. “We had a good first round at Portimão where we finished up on the podium, but then the second round in America was terrible – very disappointing – and in Egypt we weren’t massively quick all weekend. “All of the leading drivers from the WSK Euro Series entered the World Series too, so the competition was certainly pretty tough. It was hard racing, and the more you pitch yourself up against top-class European drivers like that, the better you yourself become for it. All three tracks were new to me as well, but it’s always enjoyable to discover and gain experience of different circuits – they all have their own individual challenges. It was good to see so many new places around the world, too. “I will miss karting – I’ll miss the close racing and the sheer amount of overtaking that goes on, because I know that won’t be the same in cars – and I’ll also miss all the friends I’ve made, but I’m really looking forward to moving into cars now. I’m ready to take the next step up the motorsport ladder.” Pic: Gregory Heirman/FotoFormulaK
Sensational King races to pole position and podium on mega single-seater debut
Prior to making his car racing bow, Jordan had confessed that his biggest fear for the weekend was running around on his own at the back of the pack – but right from the outset, there was not the remotest danger of that happening. A mere half-a-second or so shy of the benchmark during practice, the Stoneleigh-based driver immediately lapped ninth and sixth-fastest in the 16-strong field. In qualifying the following day, he went even better. Never outside the top five on a damp-but-drying track surface the 16-year-old put in a blistering late lap to leap to the top of the timesheets and snatching pole position by just under two tenths of a second. “I wasn’t feeling particularly nervous because I didn’t really have any expectations – I was just going to see how it went,” he revealed. “We were never really far off, right from first practice. Everything felt good, but still it was a bit of a surprise to be as quick as I was, to be honest – all a bit surreal. “Qualifying was the first time I had driven the car in the wet, and it was sliding around a bit. I like those conditions, though, and I’ve been quick in them in karting, but although I knew my lap was a good one, I didn’t know it was good enough for pole. I was quite shocked when I came in afterwards and they told me where I had qualified...” One of the indisputable highlights of his burgeoning career to-date, Jordan’s elation rapidly turned into despair when the driveshaft on his Formula Palmer Audi snapped on the grid ahead of race one, meaning he never got to take advantage of his qualifying position leaving him, ‘gutted, because I knew we were quick enough to do well – but I couldn’t do anything about it, so we just had to get over it and get on with it’. Swift repair work from the FPA mechanics at least enabled him to rejoin the action in the closing stages, where he set the third-quickest lap time. “I didn’t get away too well,” he admitted. “You need to get your reaction time ready for the lights going out, and I didn’t quite get it nailed. I dropped down to seventh, and then as I tried to fight back I went for a move on a driver ahead but he didn’t give me a lot of room. It ended up in contact and I had to retire, which was disappointing.” Sunday, however, was another day, and yielded another superb performance in qualifying to line up second –three hundredths of a second shy of pole. “I got the start nailed this time, and although I didn’t get the next gearshift quite right after that, I was able to hold onto second so it was no major issue,” he mused. “The leader initially pulled away, but I then pegged him back to around a two-second gap, and whilst the driver behind began to catch me slightly mid-race, he was never really within a second-and-a-half or so, and I was always comfortable I could open up a gap over him again. It was good to get a decent result after the first day, and I was really pleased to be up on the podium.” After that performance, the last race would unfortunately not end the way he had hoped, with wheelspin away from the line dropping Jordan four spots to seventh, and he was embroiled in a three-way tussle to recover his starting position of third when he found himself tagged from behind, leaving him with a damaged rear wing. “I would have liked to have been on the podium again – I knew I was capable of it, because I was the quickest on the track at the time – but I was still able to take a trophy home from the previous race,” he concluded of three days over the course of which he had truly turned heads. “We learned a lot about the starts and the racing in general, and I was able to adapt to the speed differential between karts and cars, even if it was all a bit crazy when it came to wheel-to-wheel stuff, probably because it was the last round of the season. Overall, though, it was definitely a really positive weekend.” Pic James Bearn King snatches runner-up spot in WSK Masters Series
With a strong previous record around the circuit close to Parma – one characterised by a succession of fast chicanes and hairpins – the young Warwickshire driver was bullish about his prospects of taking the fight to the likes of former British and European Champion Chris Lock and leading Dutch driver Max Klinkby-Silver. “It was pretty open between second and seventh in the championship going into the weekend, with six of us separated by just 17 points, and 65 still available,” he explained. “To finish the season second was definitely the aim, and given how quick we’ve been recently, I was feeling pretty confident about my chances. “Unfortunately, after showing well in practice, in qualifying I didn’t quite get the best out of the kart or situation and ended up 11th. I was surprised to be so low given we were only a tenth of a second off the pace, but at least it wasn’t a lot to have to claw back. It does make it that bit harder starting further down, but I knew I would have the speed in the races and overtaking isn’t too problematic at Castelletto.” So close was the competition, indeed, that the top 24 competitors out of the 41 KF2 class entrants were blanketed by barely three tenths and Jordan did well to recover vital ground in two of his three heat races. An excellent third place and fastest lap in the first of them was unfortunately followed by a start-line mêlée in heat two, with the 16-year-old finding himself ploughed into by an unsighted rival within seconds of the lights having gone out, leaving his Birel chassis heavily damaged and requiring a wholesale repair job to be able to get out again in time for heat three. The Stoneleigh-based racer would repay his team’s efforts in style, though, as he rocketed up the order into fifth at the chequered flag – with the race’s fastest lap once more– to place 14th in the intermediate rankings and therefore also on the pre-final grid. “The outside line in the middle of the field isn’t the greatest place to start, because it’s a danger area for crashes,” he acknowledged. “One of my main objectives was to just get round the first few corners safely and try to progress from there. I did that, and then we were really quick coming through and ended up fifth.” Another fastest lap and he found himself promoted to fourth following a disqualification ahead, snaring him a vital extra point in his quest to snatch the championship runner-up laurels. It was in the grand final, however, that the lion’s share of the points would be awarded, and courtesy of a tremendous performance as he secured the maximum points possible. “I held position through the first few corners, and then going into one of the hairpins Klinkby-Silver ran into the back of Lock, which sent them both a bit wide and I got through into second,” he recalled. “Three laps in I took the lead from Marco Moretti, but then he re-passed me and pulled out a little bit of a gap. When my kart came on, I started to reel him back in again, and I overtook him five or six laps later. “I couldn’t shake Moretti off, though, and was under constant pressure after that, with only about five metres in-between us – I knew he was always just sat there about two tenths of a second behind me, so very much within striking-distance. I tried not to think about it too much and concentrated on taking my normal lines, but on the last lap I looked over my shoulder and saw he was still there, so I just made sure I went into the corners hard and made no mistakes.” It has not been the easiest of campaigns for Jordan in 2010 – or, as he confesses, ‘a bit of a nightmare’ at times, with ill-fortune and unreliability seeming to track his every move– but a late-season switch to the Piers Sexton-run PSR outfit has vaulted him right back into contention, and revealing that he feels ‘a lot more confident now in the equipment underneath me’, second place in the championship made it very much a case of mission accomplished. “It felt so good to take the chequered flag to win,” concluded the Hugo Boss brand ambassador. “It was definitely my best result of the year and it feels like it’s been coming for a few weeks now, so it was good to get it at last. After all the bad luck and problems we’ve had this year, to finally get a win feels even more special.”
Pic: Gregory Heirman/FotoFormulaK
King produces a good turn-of-speed during his Italian adventure
The new-for-2010 WSK Master Series is an offshoot of the WSK Euro Series Despite his comparative lack of prior experience of the circuit around two hours to the north-east of Rome, Jordan still lapped up at the sharp end throughout practice, only for an unexpected development to scupper his hopes. “The level of competition in the Master Series is exactly the same as in the Euro Series, only instead of having ten drivers who can win you’ve maybe got five,” the 16-year-old explained. “I had done a day’s testing at Val Vibrata some time beforehand, so I knew which way the track went. It’s not too difficult to learn – it’s got quite a simple layout with a bit of everything, and I enjoyed driving it. “I was feeling ill before qualifying, and I actually had a nosebleed halfway through – I didn’t realise what had happened until I got back to the pits and took my helmet off and my face was covered in blood! That certainly didn’t help me to get the best out of the session and I ended up fifth in my group and tenth overall, but we were less than two tenths of a second off the quickest, so there were no major problems. “In the first heat I got into second and was slowly catching the leader by half-a-tenth-a-lap or so. I got to within about four kart-lengths of him and then made a lunge to grab the lead, and after that I was able to establish enough of a gap to give me the breathing space I needed to win the race.” Rebounding from his qualifying woes, the Harbury-based racer added to his good start with a strong runner-up finish in the second encounter, electing to just ‘chill out and save the tyres’ rather than try to chase down a leader who had established quite an advantage by the time Jordan had worked his way into P2. When the heavens opened in time for heat three he was dominant and took the chequered flag almost five seconds clear of his closest pursuer. “I’d watched the race before in the wet, so I knew roughly what the lines would be like,” he reasoned. “I was able to come through really quickly, and after I caught the leader I got past and then just pulled away. Everything felt good and I’m always confident in the wet, and it all came pretty easily, to be honest.” Consequently topping the intermediate rankings amongst the KF2 class competitors, Jordan went on to begin the pre-final from pole position and demonstrated that he is capable of mixing it against international opponents as he became embroiled in a fraught three-way scrap for supremacy and wound up a scant six hundredths of a second shy of victory. “I stayed in front for the first few laps, but then I got into a battle with Antonio Giovinazzi and Max Klinkby-Silver,” recounted the Princethorpe College student. “Klinkby-Silver took the lead and built up a small gap, and then Giovinazzi came past me for second, so I just sat behind him and pushed until we caught Klinkby-Silver back up again – and after that it was all a bit of a dogfight! “We kept swapping places and with a couple of laps to go I got back into the lead, but I then went a little bit too tight into one of the hairpins and that allowed Giovinazzi to just sneak up the inside of me on the exit. I fell down to fourth, but on the last lap I managed to get second place back again. “Unfortunately, in the grand final I didn’t get a good start; we only had one rolling-up lap, whereas before the pre-final there had been two so I thought there was going to be another one, and when the race started I wasn’t quite ready and was two metres behind the pole man going across the line. That allowed a lot of karts past me on the inside, and I dropped down to about eighth. I recovered to fourth by the end of the first lap and I was beginning to catch the leaders again towards the end of the race, but I just ran out of laps...” With the front-runners all so evenly-matched, it was difficult to make any great progress, as Jordan went on to cross the finish line a mere two seconds adrift of the race-winner. Still, second and fourth represented solid points indeed with regard to the overall standings, and the Piers Sexton-run driver knows he will travel to the Castelletto decider in October with as good a chance of any of his rivals of claiming second spot in the title chase. “I was disappointed given the speed we had and what I felt we could have achieved, but it was still good to get two strong results,” he mused in conclusion of his Val Vibrata adventure. “There’s very little in it between second and sixth in the championship, so P2 is now the goal – and I’m confident we can do it.” pic: Gregory Heirman/FotoFormulaK Cool customer King battles the best in the world with stirring Spanish showing
“Everyone from KF2 and Super KF was there, and everyone was fast,” the 16-year-old revealed. “It was effectively 118 drivers all capable of winning and definitely the hardest field I’ve ever raced against, but I was really looking forward to it. I like the track – you need to get everything right to be quick over a single lap, which isn’t easy – and I’ve done well there in the past too, so I was confident we’d have the pace. “On my ‘out’ lap in qualifying, Nyck de Vries crashed into me, which bent my rear bumper. That may have cost me a little bit in terms of lap time, but I still ended up third in my group and tenth overall. I was fairly happy with that.” From third on the grid for all three of his heat races, Jordan took a brilliant victory and a brace of competitive third places, With much at stake and consequently much to lose, he put not so much as a wheel out-of-place. “In the first heat I made a good start and got into the lead, and then Jordon Lennox-Lamb, Emanuele Pagani and I broke away from the pack,” he recounted. “I fell back to second behind Lennox-Lamb and sat behind him until his engine seized coming onto the straight. That was unfortunate for him but it helped me, as it turned it from a three horse race into just the two of us. “That took the pressure off a little bit, and whilst Pagani then passed me for the lead, I was always confident of getting it back again. It was just a case of timing it right, which I did with a couple of laps to go and then pulled out enough of a gap to hold on.” His results placed him a superb third in the intermediate rankings and with only the top 34 competitors progressing on to the finals the following day it was more than enough.. Joran acknowledged that his first-ever CIK-FIA press conference in the full glare of the world’s media was ‘pretty cool really, and not as daunting as I had thought it would be’. “In the pre-final I held third through the first two corners, and then at the first hairpin on the opening lap I moved into the lead,” the Harbury-based hotshot went on, “but then into the second hairpin later around the lap I got passed and forced wide. Off-line at Zuera it’s really dusty, so that left me with dirt on my tyres, which slowed me down for the rest of the lap as I tried to scrub it off again. “It’s a vicious circle, because you’re sliding around so you get overtaken, and that pushes you wide again and you end up with even more dirt on your tyres. I fell a long way back – down as far as 15th or 16th, I think – but our speed was really good after that and I just focussed my efforts on getting back as many places as I could. We ended up 11th, though if I hadn’t made that one little mistake I might have been able to get away and perhaps even win, which would have changed the whole course of the weekend.” The equal second-fastest lap time underlined Jordan’s conviction and the Princethorpe College pupil would again prove to be right on the money in an evenly-matched grand final later in the day. “I got up to seventh at the start,” he explained, “and heading down to the hairpin for the first time I kept in tight, but not tight enough obviously as I got passed and dropped to 11th. Behind me there was a big gap back to the rest, but after that it was a hard race with lots of to-ing and fro-ing in terms of lap time, and as everyone at the front was lapping at virtually the same pace as each other right down to thousandths of a second, I wasn’t able to make any positions back up and finished 11th again. “The end result was a little disappointing given the pace we’d had over the weekend and what we might have achieved, but looking on the positive side, it was good to be right up there like we were after a bad start to the season. We changed teams and equipment recently to go with Piers Sexton, and since then we’ve found a lot of speed – that’s encouraging for the remainder of the year.” “I was pleased with the form we showed,” he concluded. “We proved we can take the fight to all the established names and champions, and at the end of the day it will give us confidence for moving onto different things next year.”
King overcomes adversity for podium finish to keep British runner-up hopes alive
Though he had never raced at Glan Y Gors before, Jordan swiftly came to appreciate the demanding North Wales circuit – “I really like the track; it’s quite challenging, undulating and good fun to drive with a bit of everything, and in testing we were quick and made good progress,” he reported – and rapidly proved to be on the leading pace in both wet and dry conditions. Electing to play it safe on a wet-but-drying track surface in qualifying – given that Glan Y Gors is a punishing circuit in terms of tyre degradation – the 16-year-old deemed slicks too much of a gamble in such changeable climatic conditions and wound up fourth-fastest, barely two tenths of a second shy of the best-placed grooved-shod competitor having gone a little too low on the gearing and too high on the tyre pressures aboard his KF2 class Birel mount. Whilst the eventual pole-sitter proved that slicks had ultimately been a risk worth taking, Jordan knew that having saved his would leave him in better shape for the dry weather forecast for later on that day and Sunday’s finals. And despite his engine betraying its first sign of weakness in the opening heat race, Jordan nonetheless emerged on top in a thrilling duel with championship leader Jacob Nørtoft for third place by just 0.08secs. “I had a good fight with Jacob, and it was good to get one over on the championship leader,” he acknowledged, “but being down-on-power made it hard work. The second heat was even more difficult; a couple of drivers had newer tyres on than us and were coming through, and I didn’t want to push too hard and risk using up my tyres too much before the finals. I was fifth and setting competitive lap times, but with three laps to go I came into the pits to stop and save the tyres, because quite a few other drivers had dropped out by then and finishing where we were would not have made any difference to our ranking of P3. “In the first final, I had a good first lap to move into second, but then just three corners later the engine seized. I had been really quick and catching the leader and everything felt good, so that was really annoying. We struggled with engine problems all weekend, to be fair, and even when we got it right we still didn’t have as much power as everyone else with the same motor seemed to have. We were faster than the rest of the field through the corners, but they would edge away slightly down the straights, which was frustrating.” Indeed it was, and worse still it left Jordan to begin the second final from 11th and plum last on the starting grid. Undeterred, he went on to produce an eye-catching charge through the field to the bottom step of the rostrum, setting a fastest lap time along the way for good measure. “We still had the pace so I was confident of being able to come through,” he affirmed. “In the first couple of laps everyone was defending a lot, which they don’t usually do at the start, and that made it difficult to overtake and meant I just had to launch my kart up the inside of people. Then things calmed down a bit and I was able to attack more and move through the field. “It’s quite hard to overtake at Glan Y Gors; there are some good opportunities, and others that are possible as long as you get a really good run on the driver ahead. Even then, you have to be careful they don’t push you over the kerb or that they can come straight back at you again – but I just went for it! When I got up to fifth there was a bit of a gap ahead, but I caught third and fourth with three laps to go and passed them both. “Despite the lack of power, we were still really quick which shows that the team and kart are both good. For the engine to seize in the first final when the points start being handed out was a pain, but our corner speed was encouraging and it was good to bounce back and get a result in the second final the way we did.” Having gained a spot to fourth in the title standings – just 14 points adrift of second place – the crown itself may now be a long shot with only two meetings left at Whilton Mill and PF International, but the Hugo Boss brand ambassador has vowed to keep on pushing regardless. That he is still within touching distance of the runner-up laurels at all given the run of poor reliability that has hampered his efforts this year is quite an achievement in itself – with similar engine woes having cost him potential victories at both Larkhall and Nutts Corner earlier on in the campaign – as having been quick just about everywhere, Jordan’s bid for glory has been undone rather by circumstances beyond his control. “We can still catch Nørtoft if we win every remaining final and he has a couple of bad results, but second is a more realistic goal now and very much up for grabs,” mused the JRP-run speed demon in conclusion. “Last time we were at Whilton we had two fourth places, I won there in Mini Max and the chassis was very quick there in Formula Kart Stars last year, so there’s clearly potential and it should be good for us – and a lack of power doesn’t harm you as much as around some other tracks either. “I’ve had good results at PF before too, winning Kartmasters in the dry and proving really quick in the rain. I’m not looking too closely at the championship anymore, to be honest – I just need to get four solid results now. We’ve had a few bad finals where we’ve either broken down or things haven’t gone too well, so the target is to stay up there and hopefully finish in the top two in every final from now to the end of the season.”
King remains in touch in title chase on tough transatlantic weekend
Jordan headed Stateside for the first time sitting fourth in the points table off the back of a strong seventh place and a podium finish in the Portuguese curtain-raiser at Portimão in the Algarve – but after playing himself swiftly into the groove during practice by lapping encouragingly inside the top ten at Millville in New Jersey, qualifying would unfortunately go far from according to-plan. “I didn’t know what any of it would be like,” confessed the 16-year-old. “The circuit was pretty good, with a nice layout and a bit of gradient but also really bumpy which made things difficult. It’s a long, narrow track but there are no straights as such, which meant there was never any time to rest – and we lost a tenth of a second between practice and qualifying, which with that level of competition can equate to quite a few positions.” A lowly 17th on the KF2 class starting grid – with a lack of power a particular issue – Jordan salvaged three solid results from his heat races in 14th, 12th and 11th respectively, charging briefly into the top ten in the first of them before finding himself shoved aside. That left Jordan ninth in the intermediate rankings, higher up than he had expected to be given his difficulties and only half as far away from the front-runners as he had been after qualifying. The new Hugo Boss brand ambassador then went on to produce a gutsy performance against the odds to snatch two points for 11th place in a gruelling pre-final, and the grand final itself promised better still, until a moment’s error ended up costing him dearly. “We were quicker in the pre-final than in the heats, but still a tiny bit off where we needed to be, which made it a really tough race,” he confessed. “We could just about keep with the others, but to actually fight against them was hard work. “In the grand final I got a good start up to sixth, but then when I tried to overtake the driver ahead I made a little mistake which slowed down my exit out of the corner; that cost me three or four places into the following corner as a train of karts went past and dropped me down into the pack behind. I reckon I could maybe have finished as high as seventh without that, but 11th was still decent points.” After chilling out following the racing with a couple of days in New York Jordan was left to reflect upon a weekend of damage limitation from which he had rescued seven points in trying circumstances...points that could prove significant indeed come season’s end. The WSK World Series will conclude at Sharm El Sheik in just under three months’ time, and with no competitor having eked out an unassailable advantage in the standings and the 42 points separating sixth-placed Jordan from the top of the table less than is on offer for a grand final victory, the JRP-run speed demon knows all he can do is to focus firmly upon himself, and let everything else simply take its course. “We scored some points at least, and we’re still high up in the championship and within shouting distance of the leaders – so we can still get a top result,” he asserted. “The racing in WSK is always really close – no-one has won a race by a big margin yet – and that is reflected in the points situation, too. “Obviously I would love to win the championship, but that will be hard and a more realistic result now would be to finish inside the top three – that’s definitely on I would say, and that’s what we’ll be aiming for at Sharm El Sheik. I’m feeling confident, because we know we’re quick enough. We still need to rely on other drivers finishing lower down in Egypt, but all I can do personally is to go for the double win.”
King begins international title challenge with perfect Portuguese podium
The inaugural WSK World Series is an offshoot of the WSK Euro Series, and aside from Portugal will take in rounds in New Jersey in the USA and Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt between now and the end of October. With 37 KF2 class drivers in attendance, the curtain-raising meeting took place alongside the FIA World Touring Car Championship. “It’s a good circuit,” Jordan noted of a track he had never so much as set eyes upon prior to discovering it for the first time during practice. “There’s a little bit of gradient in some places, and it has different types of corners. Pretty much all the top European drivers were there, so the competition was of a high level and the locals did start off with a bit of an advantage, but it wasn’t that difficult to learn and once I got into it I really enjoyed driving it – and we were pretty much on it or near enough from the word ‘go’.” Feeling confident, that optimism would be corroborated by fourth position in his group in qualifying and seventh overall – “The Birel chassis and BMB engine felt pretty good; we struggled with understeer all weekend, but that was our only major issue,” the Harbury ace reported – and that would be converted into a brace of fifth places and a comfortable runner-up spot in his three heats, improving in terms of pace on every occasion and always finishing within three seconds of the winner. In heat two, indeed, Jordan featured in the lead scrap all the way through and proved to be consistently one of the quickest drivers on the circuit as he gave hot pursuit after falling back slightly at the start. What’s more, in two of the three races he set a better fastest lap time than the winner to earn himself fifth on the starting grid for the pre-final, as the 16-year-old acknowledged that his form was extremely ‘promising’. “I got up to second in the pre-final, but then halfway through the race Yu Kanamaru came past me and in doing so he slid wide,” he recounted. “I kept to my normal racing line which left us side-by-side, but because the next corner was a left-hander and he had the inside line for it, I had to back out of it which allowed Karol Basz to get up the inside of me too. “That put me off-line and cost me a lot of time and places, and after that I ended up in the middle of the chasing pack and it all kicked off. I recovered to seventh in the end which meant we still collected good points for the championship, but I was disappointed in truth. We were just a bit unlucky, to be honest.” Having dropped as low as eighth place as he found himself unwittingly caught up in a fraught six-way dogfight, Jordan was nonetheless again able to demonstrate his speed and potential – and he would do so again in the grand final later in the day. Only this time, he would be fittingly rewarded. “I got up to third at the start and was just about hanging onto the top two,” related the Repton School pupil. “Ignazio D’Agosto made a move on Luke Varley for the lead and I followed him through into second. I then tried to go for the lead myself, but D’Agosto saw it coming and turned in. That lost us both a lot of time and I dropped back to fifth. “I remained there until two drivers in front of me collided, so I was able to take advantage of that and then started to catch the two leaders again towards the end but just ran out of laps. If my move on D’Agosto had come off, I could possibly have won, but we were still right in there so that was encouraging – and I got to take a trophy home, so it was all good.” Indeed, there was barely six hundredths of a second to choose between the lead trio at the chequered flag in terms of lap time as Jordan wound up less than seven tenths shy of victory to conclude proceedings fourth in the standings with a third of the WSK World Series campaign now completed. Moreover, the result marked a hat-trick of rostrum finishes in swift succession for the new Hugo Boss ambassador following back-to-back podiums in the national Super 1 Series – and next time, he hopes, it will be the top step that he mounts. “We are on decent kit now and it’s all starting to come together,” he reflected at the end of the weekend, “so if we keep working hard on the engine and everything carries on moving forwards like it is at the moment, we should be able to get some wins – and I’d like to think we can go for the title too.”
King back in the hunt for glory as Cumbrian charge nets him season-best
Jordan had successfully put a torrid run of ill-fortune behind him with a return to the rostrum in third place in the preceding meeting at Nutts Corner in Ireland, and as he continued to adapt to his new kart – one bearing both the initials and input of leading F1 star Robert Kubica – the highly-rated young Warwickshire hotshot was in optimistic mood regarding his prospects heading to Cumbria. “Rowrah is a difficult circuit to get right,” he revealed. “You’ve got to strike a balancing-act between attacking every corner and keeping quite relaxed at the same time. It’s a really hard track to lead around, too, because there are no real straights to pull away on and it’s so tight that it’s easy to follow people.
“The last
time I had raced there was in KF3, but I’ve been quick at Rowrah pretty
much every time I’ve been there. I know the circuit quite well, but I’m
still getting used to how the ‘RK’ handles at different tracks. I’d only
been out on it for four days in total before the weekend, so there’s a
little bit still to be learned in that respect and there’s maybe another
tenth of a second or so to get out of it in terms of the way I need to
drive it, but I was feeling pretty confident. That it isn’t, and with his focus firmly on the races – where the points are handed out – Jordan notched up a win and a runner-up spot from his two heats, easing away in the first of them to prevail by just shy of a second, and shadowing Danish rival Jacob Nørtoft all the way to the chequered flag in the other, setting a better fastest lap time than his quarry but falling just short of overhauling him. Still, having already done enough to secure pole position for the first of the two finals, he never needed to. “I got a good start and was able to pull away by about ten kart-lengths to begin with,” the Harbury ace recalled of the opening final. “I then just tried to maintain that gap, but Nørtoft and Billy Albone worked together to catch me up. They closed me right down towards the end, and when I made a small mistake Nørtoft was able to get right onto my bumper. “They both got past me, but by the time I got Billy back, Jacob had been able to edge away by a few kart-lengths. I was starting to catch him again after that, but I just ran out of laps... I should have won if I hadn’t made the mistake, so I was annoyed with myself for that.” Having led 16 of the race’s 21 laps, it was understandably frustrating for Jordan to be mounting only the second step of the podium rather than the highest one, but finishing less than half a second shy of victory nonetheless marked an excellent result – the 16-year-old’s best of the season to-date. And the second final later in the day would culminate in another champagne-popping moment. “I tried to go around the outside into the first corner, because that’s a right-hander but the next one is a left,” recounted the JRP-run speed demon, “but it didn’t quite pay off and I fell down to third. After that I had a bit of a fight with Nørtoft for second and overtook him, but he then got me back and because we had been battling, Albone had been able to establish quite a lead. “After that, as we were all very similar on pace it wasn’t easy to gain ground, because the gaps stayed reasonably static. We had a small problem with the engine, too, which meant we were a bit down on power. That didn’t help either, and overall I was disappointed with third. “It was still definitely my best meeting of the year so far, though – the first round of Super 1 was a bit of a nightmare, in the second our engine blew and we missed testing for the third due to my exams. Everything finally came together this time, and it was encouraging that the pace was there.” Convinced that he would have been able to take the fight to Nørtoft but for his engine issue, Jordan nonetheless sent out a warning to his competitors that he will be a force to be reckoned with indeed over the remainder of the Super 1 campaign. That will kick off at Glan Y Gors in North Wales in early August, but prior to that the Repton School pupil has another challenge to attend to – his participation in the inaugural WSK World Series, taking in races at Portimão in Portugal, New Jersey in the USA and Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt...and what looks set to be a veritable journey into the unknown. “I’ve never raced at Glan Y Gors before, but I tested there recently for the first time and I enjoyed the circuit,” he concluded. “It has a lot of different features to it and the gradients are quite similar to Rowrah, so I think it should generate some good racing. We were pretty quick in testing, but because we were the only people there, there was nobody else to measure ourselves against. We made progress at Rowrah, though, and we need to keep that momentum going. We’re on better kit now and I think I’m driving better than before, too – so a win is on the cards. “The WSK World Series should be really good, and it’s always interesting to go to different circuits. The round at Portimão will really be in the international spotlight, because it’s on the same bill as the FIA World Touring Car Championship. We will see what happens, but obviously I always aim to do the best I can – and ultimately I’d like to bring home another trophy.”
King returns to podium with strong progress on ‘blind’ Irish weekend
In his two previous meetings Jordan King had twice taken pole but in each engine woes had intervened. At both Larkhall in Scotland and the WSK Euro Series at Genk in Belgium he had lost out despite being right on the pace in both qualifying and the heats. Arriving at Nutts Corner in Co. Antrim with a new chassis, he knew he would be up against it as he was forced to miss all of testing due to his GCSEs. “We got there on Friday afternoon, and I went out for the first time in practice on Saturday morning,” he explained, acknowledging that the ‘RK’ is ‘slightly different’ in every area to what he had been on. “That was quite a big disadvantage, because it obviously helps if you know the track well and I had only raced there once before. “I really like the circuit, though – it has quite a bit of gradient, and you really need to respect the kerbs. I broke the lap record there last year so I was feeling quite confident, but it was my first time at Nutts in KF2 – and the last thing you want when you’re trying to get used to a new kart is for it to rain, which is precisely what it did!” Lapping a little way off the pace ion practice things got worse in qualifying when an engine seizure left him last on the grid for his two heats. Worse still, the 16-year-old subsequently found himself spun out of eighth position in heat one but happily, a dry second day paved the way to seventh place in heat two, a clear sign that he was increasingly getting to grips with his new chassis. His early misfortune still meant he would have to begin the first final from towards the back of the field – but the race would develop into the highlight of the weekend. “I just slowly came through and ended up third,” recounted the Repton School pupil. “Our pace was good, but with everybody on more-or-less the same kind of lap time it’s difficult to make massive progress – so it was definitely good to get a result and to be back on the podium again, especially having not been there for a year and turning up with no testing and on a different kart. “At the start of the second final, Jacob Nørtoft on pole left a gap, so I tried to go up the inside; he saw me coming and went to shut the door, but I was already alongside him and my rear wheel touched his rear wheel. My wheel went over his, which lifted the back of my kart up so I couldn’t brake and I went into the gravel and down to the back. I was still confident of being able to catch people up if they started fighting, but they never did. It was a bit disappointing not to get another good result, because the podium had been on the cards again.” Frustrating a conclusion to proceedings it might have been, but nonetheless the impression Jordan took away from Ireland was a positive one, still in touch in the chase for the crown and looking ahead now to round four at Rowrah in Cumbria. “On the first day we didn’t get a lot of laps in – probably about 20 in all – but we managed to cover 50 or so on the second day in the dry,” he reflected. “It was hard to get used to everything in such a short period of time, but we got somewhere close by the end. We can probably find another tenth from the chassis and another tenth from me in terms of driving it, and there will be extra time to be found when we get the new engine as well. “Our pace was definitely encouraging. At Rowrah, I think, for the championship we need a double win; we’ve been quick there before – I had a podium in KF3 last year and finished first and second in Mini Max in 2008. It’s quite a drivers’ track and you really need to attack it – and I’m feeling confident.”
King progresses comfortably to European Final – and bids to ‘bring a trophy home’
Some 57 competitors entered the Western region qualification round, composed of French, Portuguese, Swiss, Spanish, American, Republic of Ireland and British drivers at KF2 level – and Jordan was under no illusions that the competition would be fierce. “I knew who was quick and who would be up there,” the Warwickshire star confessed, “and I knew who I could trust, too, from having raced against most of them before! I’m usually fast around PF, so I was feeling quite confident going into the weekend.” Ninth in qualifying – just under half a second shy of the benchmark – was a satisfactory outcome given that the wet/dry weather conditions that made things unpredictable and turned set-up into a lottery. P9 secured him a second row starting slot for each of his four heat races. “In the first heat I got into the lead, but then I got passed at the second hairpin,” he recounted. “That forced me out a bit wide and left me with some dirt on my tyres, and it took me a couple of laps to scrub it off and get back on the pace again – by which time I had lost even more positions. It took a while for the kart to come on, but after that our pace wasn’t too bad.” Nonetheless, eighth place was a solid start, and a best lap time within three tenths of the quickest proved that Jordan was closing in. A power valve issue in heat two subsequently restricted him to a hard-fought seventh at the chequered flag before a change of engine for his last two heats transformed his Energy kart and enabled the 16-year-old to storm to a brace of runner-up spots. Comfortably progressing to the next day placed seventh out of the 34 successful contenders and boosted by his much-improved pace, Jordan headed into Sunday’s finals needing only to finish inside the top 26 overall to make it through to the European Final at Genk in Belgium in July, he would do so with aplomb. “I got up to sixth at the start, but the front group were slowly edging away,” he recalled of the first final, “and then Alex Walker crashed into me at the first hairpin. I ended up 15th as a result of that, which put the pressure on a little bit more for the second final, whereas if I’d been seventh or eighth I would have already been safe regardless of where I finished later on. That was disappointing, but I just had to take it on the chin. “I was aiming for a decent result in the second final, because I didn’t want to go through with a best finish of 15th – but equally I knew a top 20 would be enough, so I was feeling quite calm about it still. I got up to fifth at the first start, but then the race was red-flagged because there was carnage further back in the pack. “There was some crazy driving out there, but it’s all a percentage game. Some people were being really silly and pushing hard all the way through – and that ruined a lot of other drivers’ weekends. I didn’t really understand it, because there was no need for that kind of approach. Luckily, I managed to keep out of it all. “At the re-start I came out of the second hairpin in fourth, but then my engine cut out briefly which cost me a few places. That dropped me down to tenth, but we were as quick as the leaders after that and came back through to seventh. I was happy with the pace we had by the end of the weekend.” Concluding proceedings an excellent eighth, Jordan did exactly what he had needed to do, mindful of the fact that risking it all to triumph in a qualifying meeting would be pointless, given that the prizes will only be awarded in two months’ time. “Obviously I’d like to win, because we haven’t had great results so far this year. We’ve had a bit of bad luck engine-wise, so it would be nice to show that I can actually compete at the front and am capable of winning – and a good performance this weekend would send out a marker for the European Final as well. I just want to be up there again, score some decent points and get back in the game – and I’d like to bring a trophy home too...”
Lightning-fast King finding his feet in 2010 – and aiming for Europe!
Having seen his efforts thus far this year hampered by a lack of engine performance and reliability issues, Jordan travelled north of the border still down-on-power but happier with the equipment at his disposal than he has been for some time – and around a circuit where the driver can really make a difference, the Warwickshire driver wasted little time in demonstrating this by putting his Energy kart on pole position. “That was a good boost,” he acknowledged, “because we haven’t really had a great start to the season; things haven’t really gone our way, so it was good to have something go right for once! I’m usually quite quick at Larkhall. It all happens round there – you don’t really get any time to rest at all! It’s quite a short lap and you’re always doing something, which makes it very challenging. “It’s a real drivers’ circuit, and if you’re even just a tenth off it’s hard to get that back – but power isn’t quite as important at Larkhall because there are so many corners, making it more about how much speed you can carry into them. Obviously it still helps to have decent power, but you can make up for a lack of it more easily.” Jordan led the first four laps of his opening heat before ceding the position Jacob Nørtoft, who snuck past to pip him to the top spot at the chequered flag by a little under a second as the Dane’s superior engine power enabled him to just edge out of reach. A second heat held in wet conditions subsequently caused it to ‘all kick off’, and Jordan did well to claim a solid third place, as others saw their efforts drowned by the puddles swamping the track – and with that, the 16-year-old secured P2 on the grid for the first final. “I was aiming to win,” he confessed, “because Nørtoft had built up a good lead after the first round at Shenington and we needed to pull back some points on him – but right from the start, I knew something was not quite right with the engine, and on lap two it let go. I was second at the time, so that was particularly frustrating – as we had definitely been quick enough to win.” A double whammy – with vital points falling by the wayside and the outcome leaving Jordan plum last on the grid for the second final – the failure would prove to be the catalyst for a great charge up the order later in the day “It’s really hard to catch people at Larkhall,” Jordan explained, “because you always lose time overtaking there. I didn’t get lucky at the start, and with the first few corners being really tight I only gained a couple of places. After that I just gradually worked my way through the pack and ended up seventh. I was quicker than the winner and was the fastest driver on the track full-stop for much of the race. “We had the speed to be up there and fighting for the win, which was encouraging and frustrating at the same time. The weekend was definitely a good step forward in terms of pace, but we sacrificed points and have lost quite a lot of ground in the championship now due to the engine failure. That means we’re on the back foot, but we’ve clearly made progress.” That much seems incontrovertible, and as he now focuses his attentions on the upcoming qualifying meeting at PF International for the prestigious annual CIK-FIA European Championship – preparing to take on 56 fellow KF2 class hopefuls all bidding to make it through to the main event at Genk in Belgium in July – the Repton School pupil is in far more optimistic frame of mind, and well aware of what he needs to do. “Whenever we’ve been round PF recently we’ve been amongst the top five or so in the dry, and really quick in the wet,” he reasoned. “Obviously it would be nice to get a win so people can see our potential and that we mean business, but the main goal is just to get safely through – so I’m aiming for two solid results to progress to the European Championship. I’m confident in the dry – and even more so if it rains...”
King proves raw pace, but ill-fortune costs him prestigious Margutti podium
Jordan travelled to Castelletto close to Parma buoyed by having stormed to the maiden podium of his fledgling international career at the same circuit just under 12 months previously. If he acknowledged that ‘the level of competition was high’ in the 59-strong KF2 class field, a top ten pace in practice was an encouraging start, and fifth position in his group and ninth overall in qualifying reinforced that early promise. From fifth on the grid for all three of his heat races, fourth and third in the first two of them kept the 16-year-old well in the hunt, and the consistency of his lap times was particularly impressive. In his last heat, though, the climatic conditions would play an altogether more important role – play havoc, indeed. “It rained just before the start,” Jordan recalled. “We went out on wet tyres, but some other drivers chose slicks and after two laps it dried up. When the weather is like that you don’t know what it’s going to do, and it creates a bit of a lottery. The drivers on slicks had a lot more grip and were coming through, but those of us on wets were just sliding around and really struggling – and going backwards pretty quickly. The tyres were burning up and we went through all of the tread on them in just a ten-lap heat – there was nothing left by the end.” Eighth in the circumstances – just behind the similarly wet rubber-shod pole-sitter – was an admirable outcome, and the combination of results earned the Harbury-based pilot fifth in the intermediate rankings, equal on points with fourth. However, he would unfortunately find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time in the pre-final as three separate incidents – none of his own making – served to send Jordan spinning down the order and left him a frustrated and disappointed 19th at the chequered flag. “I just had to try to keep calm and concentrate on the grand final,” he maturely reflected. “I was hoping to get a good start and aiming to finish in the top ten; I thought that would be a good result, particularly as we weren’t quite as quick in the wet as in the dry. It was the first time we had been at Castelletto in the wet, and both me and Mitchell Gilbert – who was also on an Energy chassis – were struggling for grip, which made things more difficult.” Be that as it may, a lightning getaway when the starting lights went out gained Jordan a number of places and lifted him to the fringes of the top ten. Before long he was right in the mix for the leading positions, inside the top eight and gaining ground fast – and then immovable object met irresistible force. “I got into a fight over seventh for a couple of laps,” the JRP star recounted. “That gave the group ahead a bit of a gap, and there wasn’t enough time left after that to catch them back up again. I was quicker than the other guy was, so if he had let me past and then worked with me rather than choosing to fight over the position, we probably would have been able to catch them. The top two were gone, but the group from third-to-sixth were battling amongst themselves – so a podium could definitely have been on the cards.” Seventh was ultimately poor reward for a stirring drive, but his pace proved that Jordan is there, and very much a bona fide contender for podium places on the European stage in 2010. Heading next to Lonato near Garda, again in Italy, for round two of the WSK Euro Series, hopes remain justifiably high. “I was happy with the result given where we had started the grand final,” the Repton School pupil concluded, “but I had wanted to finish higher up than that considering we had qualified so well and been so quick in the heats. I haven’t been round Garda for a little while and didn’t do the Winter Cup there, so I don’t really know what to expect – but the top five is what we’ll be shooting for again.”
Power problems frustrate King, but potential clearly remains
Jordan travelled to his ‘home’ circuit of Shenington close to Banbury in Oxfordshire still on a learning curve with his new Energy chassis, but boosted by a strong showing on his debut with his new mount in the opening round of the WSK Euro Series at La Conca in Italy a fortnight earlier. “I’ve never really paid much attention to that; I think if you show people respect then they will show it back to you,” he concisely and maturely opined – the Harbury ace headed into the weekend with high hopes, but ones that would unfortunately be rapidly blunted by persistent engine woes. “When we’ve been testing we’ve always been pretty quick, and I was quite happy with the pace we had at La Conca,” he acknowledged. “There are only 14 drivers in KF2 in Super 1, but a lot of them are competitive and most of the field are actually within a couple of tenths or so of each other, which is good. “In practice on Friday we were really fast, but then on Saturday we lost a bit of pace – we found out later that evening that there had been a crack in the piston from running it too lean. That cost us about three tenths of a second in terms of power we reckon, which with the pack being so close is quite a considerable amount.” Indeed it is, and whilst seventh spot in qualifying, just under three tenths of a second shy of pole position, was not the ideal start, equally ‘we knew we could still do something from there’ – and a scant six hundredths more would have put Jordan third. The lack of power, though – hardly ideally-timed, given Shenington’s reputation as one of the very quickest circuits in the country – left the 16-year-old fighting a defensive battle in his two heat races, which he finished seventh and eighth to begin the pre-final from seventh. “I got a really good start to dive up the inside into the first corner,” he recounted, “and then I nailed a few drivers around the outside of the second corner and got up to fourth. I even almost got third, but then it all kicked off and there was a bit of carnage and I ended up eighth. Once there was a bit of a gap to the driver ahead, it was difficult to catch them up.” Following a brief challenge to the leading group after his excellent getaway, Jordan slowly fell back as he struggled to keep pace, his cause not aided by having been shunted from behind into the driver in front early on, leaving his nosecone dragging on the ground for the remainder of the race – and he went on to begin the all-important grand final from eighth. Swiftly finding himself embroiled in an entertaining and energetic scrap with Alex Walker and experienced hand Rob Foster, the Repton School pupil’s JRP kart suddenly came alive in the second half of the race – enabling him to pull off what observers rated as the move of the day in diving neatly inside Foster into the first corner for fifth, catching his adversary completely off-guard with his superb late-braking prowess from a long way back. He subsequently went on to chase down the battle over the runner-up laurels, falling barely two seconds short in the end and confident that with just a handful of laps more, he could have come away with an even better result. Still, compared to the ‘pretty disastrous’ start he endured to his 2009 national title challenge – when he was unceremoniously taken out by a rival at PF International – sitting just three points adrift of fourth place in the championship standings this time around heading to round two at Larkhall up in Scotland has left Jordan very much within striking distance. “I managed to get into seventh behind Alex Walker, who defended for quite a while,” Jordan reflected of the grand final. “I eventually got past him and then chased down Rob Foster. I overtook him near to the end of the race, and then I was catching the group fighting over second, but the gap to them was too much to close in the laps we had left. I think my kart came on as others’ started to go off and some drivers began to make mistakes. “We were as quick as the leaders in the closing stages, and if we had begun nearer to the front or got a better start like in the pre-final, I reckon we would have been able to stay with them. It’s hard to move forwards at Shenington, because it’s really easy to defend your position due to the layout of long straights and not many corners – and if you do get past it’s difficult to break away if the driver behind gets into your tow. Overall, the result wasn’t what I had been hoping for – it should have been a top three finish – but on the positive side, there’s definitely more still to come from the Energy chassis.” The former British Mini Max Vice-Champion’s next outing is at Castelletto in Italy for his maiden appearance in the prestigious Trofeo Margutti – encouragingly, back at the scene of his first-ever podium finish in Europe in the WSK International Series just under twelve months ago. “The Margutti is a big one-off event,” he concluded, “and I haven’t done it before, so I don’t really know what to expect. There will certainly be a lot of stiff opposition, but it would be good to get a strong result to show everyone that we are up there again this year.”
Learning curve for King on European KF2 bow – but he vows to make next outing a qualified success
With a good ‘rookie’ campaign on the international stage under his belt and having stepped things up a notch from KF3 to the more powerful and fiercely-competitive KF2 level, Jordan returned to La Conca – scene of a fast but luckless debut this time 12 months ago – with high hopes. Unfortunately, to a certain extent history would insist on repeating itself. “I was obviously aiming to get the best result possible,” the 16-year-old affirmed, “but I was aware that it was my first proper race meeting in KF2 in Europe at a track I had only been to once before. I was also up against drivers who had been doing it for several years, and against whom I had never previously competed. Given that, I thought a single-digit finishing position would be good. “I like the circuit – it’s really demanding both technically and physically, and really hard to get right. Every aspect to it is difficult – it’s one of the toughest tracks on the calendar, I’d say. In testing we were really quick and topped the timesheets in some of the sessions, though, so it was all looking good. “The competition was really strong, because everyone was lapping on very similar times, but we were in the top ten overall so I was quite happy with that. Unfortunately, I don’t think my qualifying lap was the best I could have done. I could probably have gone a little bit quicker and been in the top five in my group. The kart felt good but not quite perfect, and my lap was a good one but just didn’t feel 100 per cent.” Confident of moving forwards on race day, 19th position out of the 83 contenders was nonetheless a none-too-shabby start, and better still was the knowledge that Jordan was more than capable of battling up inside the top ten. A close third place in his opening heat race was a strong result, but a misjudgement in heat two saw him plummet all the way to the foot of the top 20, from where he got his head down and doggedly fought his way back through again to recover to a damage-limiting 12th at the chequered flag. Being unceremoniously punted off at the beginning of heat three left the Harbury ace plum last by some margin and able to make little impression, despite lapping on a par with the leaders, whilst a solid fifth position in his fourth heat saw to it that Jordan progressed safely and comfortably through to the finals, with the abolition of the second-chance ‘repêchage’ this year ramping up the pressure in the knowledge that too few points from the heats means spending the remainder of the weekend sat on the sidelines. With only 34 finalists, 49 drivers – almost 60 per cent of the entrants – would be taking an early bath. “I probably could have finished second in the first one,” recounted the Repton School pupil, “but I decided to try to save my tyres a bit over the last couple of laps and so just cruised around without pushing too hard. I was running fifth in the second heat when I went for a move on the driver ahead, but I was a bit too late on the brakes and locked up the rears, which caused the engine to cut out. I then got knocked onto the grass which left me with muck all over my tyres, which it took a couple of laps to get rid of. After that, I had to focus on just fighting my way through again. “I felt under a bit of pressure after my two bad heats, but then when we looked at the points situation we knew we only really needed to finish in the top 15 in heat four to be sure of getting through to the finals. Once I got into fifth, I had a bit of a gap behind so decided I would just try to stay there; because everyone was so close on times, if there was even a small gap to the driver ahead it was really hard to close it down – it takes a long time to catch someone when the difference between you is only a tenth of a second a lap! I had to try to strike a balance between pushing and being conservative on the tyres, or else they would have gone off too quickly.” Not easy by any means, it was a task Jordan managed to perfection, earning himself 16th spot in the intermediate rankings – though frustratingly, just one more point from his heats would have been enough to put him 12th. The pre-final, however, began badly indeed. “I knew I was quick enough to get into the top ten, so I was just hoping for a good start and to then move my way up the order,” he related. “Unfortunately, I anticipated the starting lights wrong. You have to stay within the ‘tramlines’ until the lights go out, but I saw a gap beyond them and went for it – only to then realise that the lights hadn’t actually gone out. I dived back in again but it was too late. “They pulled out a board to inform me that I had a ten-second penalty, so I knew I had to try to make up as much time as I could during the race, but equally I also still needed to look after the tyres for the grand final. I couldn’t go all-out, because that would have ruined my chances for later – it was a delicate balancing act again. I finished 13th on-the-road but the penalty left me 22nd; that was so annoying, because from 13th on the grid for the grand final I could have done a lot more than from 22nd. “I got a decent start and made up a couple of places early on in the grand final. I was behind a big group of karts and it was all looking good, but again, as we were all so close on times moving forwards was difficult, because you would pass someone and then they would lunge you back again shortly after – you could never get away from anyone quickly enough to prevent them from attacking you straight back. Sometimes it was just a case of hoping people ahead would stumble over each other.” Twelfth at the close and recognising the errors that had held him back over the course of the weekend, Jordan is adamant that he will not be making the same mistakes again when the WSK Euro Series reconvenes for seconds out, round two at the end of the month at Lonato close to Garda, again in Italy. Confident in his Energy chassis and with the full support of his JRP team behind him, the clear goal next time out is to put into practice all that he has learned – and demonstrate his progress by way of on-track success. “Nailing qualifying is the main thing,” he mused in conclusion. “You need to be able to set a time in the first three laps to get the best out of the tyres, and then save them as much as you can for the rest of the weekend. It’s a lot harder racing in Europe than it is in the UK – if you make even one tiny error, it can ruin your weekend. I was up in fifth in heat two when I just made that little mistake under braking, and the whole weekend was put onto the back foot from then on. “It was a hard learning curve, but some useful lessons learned. Next time I will be able to manage the tyre wear better, and I’ll make sure I get a quick lap under my belt earlier on in qualifying. In KF2, I’m up against professional works drivers and people who have been racing for ten years or more and so have much more experience than me. I know we’re quick enough to win already, but the aim now is to iron out the little bits holding me back to be able to fight consistently at the front in every meeting.” pics Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net
King Energised by new chassis – and warns ‘there’s a lot more still to come!’
Having campaigned both on home turf and abroad in 2009 on a Maranello mount – “If you got it right it was really good, but it could also be hard work at times,” he mused – Jordan elected to switch to fellow Italian manufacturer Energy following a back-to-back single-day test alongside a Tony Kart, having initially held a preference for the latter. However, the scarcity of Energy chassis’ in Britain – the Harbury driver will be the only driver in the KF2 class to run one this year – and the ease with which he acclimatised to it swung the verdict, and so he headed off to PF buoyant about his prospects. “Over a lap the times were pretty similar between the Energy and the Tony Kart,” he reflected. “They just have different characteristics to each other. When I was on the Tony Kart I didn’t feel 100 per cent with it, but the brakes felt better on the Energy and one advantage is that very few people are racing with it in Britain. A lot of drivers are out on the Tony Kart, so you don’t really gain anything, but because the Energy is far rarer you might get more chances. “We had been really quick at PF in the dry during testing, and when we went out in the wet on Friday and Saturday we were probably even quicker. It was still wet going into race day, so I was happy with that and feeling confident. I won the first two heats quite comfortably; the first one was pretty straightforward from pole, and in the second I pulled off some outrageous manoeuvres on the first lap from near the back of the grid, and was in the lead after just three corners...” Indeed, with a victory margin of almost five seconds in both encounters – and easily fastest lap in the second of them – it was palpable that Jordan is already very happy in his new ‘office’, as none of his rivals could even hold a candle to the 15-year-old’s prowess. Whilst it was undeniably an excellent start to be so quick so soon, though, a change in the climatic conditions ahead of the final suddenly injected an element of the unknown into the action. A chaotic opening lap mêlée and brief engine woes dropped Jordan from first to eighth within the space of a handful of corners – setting the scene for a memorable fightback, as he artfully compensated for a lack of power down the straights with some supremely skilled braking into the corners to gain back time. “It dried up for the final and we didn’t quite get the kart set-up right for the conditions,” the Stuart Wright Racing (SWR) driver confessed. “The jetting was a bit out, the front brakes needed bleeding, the motor wasn’t quite on-song either,.it was little bits here and there that just added up. I knew the change in the weather would throw things up in the air a bit more, because we had only been out on the Energy for one day in the dry beforehand, so it was all still a bit of a guessing game. “There was then carnage at the start, and Ollie Morris-Jones just got lucky and was able to establish a massive gap whilst everybody else was tripping over each other. If it hadn’t been for that, I think we would have been in with a much greater chance of winning – and if it had still been wet we could definitely have won. In the dry, I didn’t know what my absolute raw pace was or where my limits were. We didn’t quite have the same edge as in the wet, simply because we’d had far less prior track time in the dry.” That, assuredly, is something that can be rectified with more time in the saddle, and the fact that Jordan was barely two hundredths of a second shy of the fastest lap at the close – despite all of his issues – is encouraging indeed, although perhaps somewhat less so for his rivals. What’s more, his pace was a full three tenths quicker than that of the race-winner, meaning that with only one Winter Series outing now remaining to decide the destiny of the prestigious and coveted ‘O’ Plate laurels – and Jordan embroiled in a fierce three-way scrap for glory – the Repton School pupil might still be on a learning curve with his new chassis, but more importantly, there is clearly so much promise and potential yet to be untapped. “I was quite pleased with how it went overall,” he concluded, having narrowed the gap to the championship leader, who suffered a torrid weekend, “and if we can get just a couple of test days under our belt now and work a bit more, we will be able to go even quicker. There’s a lot more still to come!”
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Had
it come earlier on in his career, Jordan King acknowledged that the
inaugural WSK Nations Cup might have been a frustrating event seeing as
how the end result failed to do justice to his potential – but given
that it was his final competitive karting outing he reflected that it
was good to sign off with an entertaining couple of races.
Jordan
King declared his baptism in Formula Renault Winter Series a success
following the final rounds Pembrey .After claiming a top ten finish on
his debut in the championship at Snetterton, Jordan headed to Pembrey
vowing to improve upon that. 
Everything
was looking set for karting graduate Jordan King to show a clean pair of
heels to some of his more experienced rivals on his competitive Formula
Renault Winter Series debut at Snetterton, but although a pre-weekend
practice accident turned the event into rather a bruising experience, he
left again with an encouraging top ten finish to his name and ‘a lot of
positives’ for the future.
In
one of his very last karting outings prior to stepping up to cars,
Jordan King concluded an impressive 2010 campaign with sixth place in
the WSK World Series.
Jordan
King kept himself firmly in the hunt for a top finish in the inaugural
WSK Master Series with a good performance in round two at Val Vibrata in
Italy..jpg)
Jordan
King put in an eye-catching performance in theCIK-FIA KF2 World
Championship at Zuera in Spain.The track, close to the Aragonese city of
Zaragoz, was the scene of Jordan’s European debut just under two years
ago, and it is a circuit that the young Warwickshire racer enjoys. On
his return he lapped consistently inside the top three during practice
come rain or shine – leaving him to head into the wet qualifying session
comfortable in the equipment underneath him and, to borrow his
expression, ‘chilled’..jpg)
Not
for the first time this season, Jordan King found himself afflicted by
engine problems during the fifth round of the national Super 1 Series at
Glan Y Gors, but despite his disadvantage, the impressive young
Warwickshire kart driver overcame the odds to battle his way to a podium
finish come the end of the weekend. 
Jordan
King ably demonstrated the importance of racking up the points even when
things are not going your way in the second meeting of the inaugural WSK
World Series across the Pond in America – and his dogged determination
means he will enter the Egyptian showdown in October still in the hunt..jpg)
Young
Warwickshire kart pilot Jordan King amply underlined his credentials as
one of the bright lights on the international karting stage with a
front-running performance and a podium finish to successfully launch his
bid for glory in the all-new WSK World Series at Portimão in Portugal’s
Algarve..jpg)
Jordan
King entered the third round of 2010 in the national Super 1 Series at
Nutts Corner in Ireland bidding to put a recent run of ill-fortune
behind him and the young Warwickshire driver came away with an
unanticipated podium finish..jpg)
Jordan
King produced a strong performance to earn himself a safe passage
through to the CIK-FIA European Championship Final during his qualifying
round at PF International in Lincolnshire – and now he is bidding to
become a front-runner on the International karting stage by ‘bringing a
trophy home’..jpg)
Jordan
King overcame a trying start to his 2010 karting campaign on home turf
and abroad with a vengeance by showing his rivals the way around
Larkhall in Scotland in the second round of the national Super 1 Series
– and now he is aiming to show the same turn of speed on the European
stage..jpg)
Jordan
King was shaping up for a rostrum finish in the prestigious annual
Trofeo Andrea Margutti in Italy at the weekend but sadly ill-fortune
intervened to thwart his efforts and deprive him of the result his
performance deserved..jpg)
Young
Warwickshire driver Jordan King found himself frustrated by a lack of
power on his British KF2 class bow in the 2010 Super 1 Series
curtain-raiser at Shenington, but he nevertheless pulled a
characteristically gritty and gutsy performance out of the bag to leave
with a solid haul of points – and the conviction that there is plenty
more still to come..jpg)
Jordan
King learned a number of valuable lessons as he made his European bow in
the KF2 class in the curtain-raiser for the 2010 WSK Euro Series at La
Conca in the .jpg)
Jordan
King looked to be unbeatable in the latest round of the 2009/10 Winter
Series at PF International until the weather turned and transformed
proceedings into something of a lottery – but the young Warwickshire
karting star nevertheless took a whole host of positives away from the
weekend, not least of which being his conviction that in terms of his
new Energy chassis, there is ‘a lot more still to come’.