Goff turns season around after switch to Maranello

Max Goff has kick-started his thus-far disappointing 2007 campaign in style, courtesy of a breakthrough in the Italian Open Masters and a superb maiden victory in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow’s JICA class.

The Brigstock ace saw his fortunes change after switching across to a Maranello chassis from his hitherto unloved BRM mount on the continent, and the upturn in form was immediate. Following a largely fruitless early three rounds in the Italian Open, he soared to a second-place finish last time out at Garda, a performance that has hoisted him up the championship table.

“It was excellent,” the 13-year-old underlined. “We moved off the BRM chassis because they are having some problems in that their kart doesn’t really suit the new tyres, and we have taken a big step forward now – the results show that. The Garda weekend went well from the start.”

While racing further down the order had previously left Max all-too-often at the mercy of the mercurial midfield pack, Garda yielded four top-eight finishes from the heats, although the best of these – a fourth place in heat one – would subsequently be demoted to 14th for an alleged jump-start.

“That put me 12th on the grid for the first final,” he explained, “and we managed to come through to sixth place which we were happy with. I lined up in that position for the second final and got a good start, and by the end of the first two laps I was up to third. I worked my way up into the lead, but then with just two laps to go I ended up on the grass and dropped back to second.”

It was nonetheless an impressive showing in a field counting opposition from some 27 different nations and of the calibre of reigning British Junior Karting Champion Jack Harvey and recently-signed McLaren and Mercedes-Benz Young Driver Support Programme member Oliver Rowland. What’s more, being his maiden season in the series, Max is facing the additional challenge of having to learn all the circuits from scratch.

“It’s really hard,” he acknowledged. “You have to follow people around for a few laps to get the right lines and braking points, then you just make your own small differences. All the drivers have different driving styles and the competition is tough, but we’re starting to get some decent results now.”

The same is irrefutably the case in Stars of Tomorrow, in which Max sealed his debut JICA success at Larkhall in Scotland last weekend. At the sharp end from the word go, he was never out of the top three on the timesheets throughout and was kept off the front row of the grid by a mere hundredth of a second in an ultra-competitive field, though the final, he admits, did not go entirely according to plan…

“From practice we were really quick,” he affirmed, “especially in the wet – even when it dried out we were still there or thereabouts. We weren’t quite as fast as Sam (Jenkins) in timed practice, but we clawed it back again through the heats.

“In the final got a bad start and ended up back down in eighth place. Sam was miles ahead – just a speck in the distance – but I came back through them all again one by one. Every time you overtake someone it gives you such an adrenaline rush.”

Fastest lap – as in heat two – only served to confirm Max’s dominance of proceedings, and the result has left the JICA rookie in third place in the championship standings as the series approaches its halfway stage. What’s more, after a crushingly dispiriting start to the season that had seen him on the pace but invariably in the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of his own, his cross-border visit was a real shot in the arm.

“It was amazing,” he enthused, “and quite a while coming. I hadn’t really had a good year in any championship, then suddenly I get two strong results in two weekends.”

With the next round of Stars’ at Llandow on 15 July, followed by the Italian Open at San Egidio a week later, what price a repeat performance?

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