Grice comes from 34th to second in European KF3

PDB Gillard’s Tom Grice followed his German Championship win with second in the European Junior Kart Championship this weekend after a spectacular drive from the back of the grid. The race was held at Sarno near Naples in Italy and followed qualifiers throughout Europe to bring together the continent’s best under-15 racing drivers.

Tom was off the pace in the first qualifying session after being fast throughout free practice on Friday. Track conditions meant that small changes to the kart had a big effect but the team were able to find the problem and send him out to qualify 14th out of 72 to give him a chance to pick up more places in the heats.

Unfortunately an incident in the first heat sent Tom down to 17th after starting fourth on the grid but he refused to give up and posted the fastest lap of the race. However, he went a long way to make up for it by winning his next heat, going into the lead a few laps into the race. Disaster struck again in the third heat when Tom was pushed off at the start, dropping down the order to 15th but he salvaged the race, overtaking and avoiding further crashes to finish sixth. Another solid finish, fourth, gave him a starting position of 12th for the Prefinal.

But he was right back to zero at the start of the Prefinal, getting caught up in a second-corner crash. Tom could go no further and had to watch the rest of the race from a marshal’s post.

In the final, another British driver, Jack Harvey, was to go on to win by the length of the straight, and according to Tom’s team Harvey “was a true European Champion, and we’re very happy for him.”

Meanwhile, Tom started 34th and last. Starting on the outside of the track, he took a chance and stayed out wide, enabling him to avoid the inevitable crash this time. Then there was a group of eight karts together, all of whom he was able to take easily. “Then it was a matter of picking off people until I got to the front,” said Tom. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Halfway through the race he was in third and gaining on his compatriot James Thorp. He tailed him for several laps then made his move at one of the hairpins to go into second. He had more power than Thorp, but had to drive faultlessly from there on, as the slightest mistake would lose him the position again.

No mistakes were forthcoming and Tom took the chequered flag to become Vice-Champion of Europe, and after gaining 32 places in the 15-lap race was many people’s driver of the day. “I don’t care what anyone says, that’s the best drive I’ve ever seen,” said Tom’s mentor Mark Rose.

2 Responses to “Grice comes from 34th to second in European KF3”

1. Tom Grice Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 5:27 pm