Podium for Dixon at Salbris

Kent karting star, James Dixon, achieved his ambitions for the weekend by taking a podium finish and a haul of points to move himself into fifth place in the KF2 category of the Winning Series of Karting.

The 17-year-old Candy Carriers backed racer was competing at the French venue of Salbris and had headed into the meeting with the sole aim of bringing home as many points as possible to push him up the WSK rankings.

A superb weekend for the JRP Racing team driver started with some rapid times in free practice on Friday. However, as he headed into qualifying he found that he was struggling for rear end grip from his Maranello Kart chassis.

A sterling effort allowed him to claim 10th on the grid for his first heat and he followed that by taking seventh place in the race, despite getting a poor start. However, in the second heat, he once again struggled with a lack of grip and had to settle for 11th place.

For the first of the two point scoring finals, the team opted to put on brand new tyres to try and cure the lack of traction. The change made an immediate improvement, with James charging up from tenth on the grind to fifth in the race, collecting his first points of the weekend.

In a fired up mood, Dixon made a swift move for fourth place from his fifth place starting position in the second final. After holding fourth for a handful of laps he made a move for third place and managed to hang onto the place all the way to the chequered flag.

After repeating his best result in the class this season, James was surprised to learn that he had moved into fifth in the championship, with a possible fourth place available to him at the final round at the beginning of July.

“I’m really pleased with my performance this weekend,” smiled James. “I came here with the sole intention to get as many points as I could over the weekend and see where it put me in the championship. To be fifth is great and I have a mathematical chance of taking fourth in the series, if I get another good weekend at the final round. I just need my closest rival to have an average weekend too, which is certainly possible in WSK as it’s extremely tight,”

“It was another circuit that I’ve never raced on either and I was quick straight away when we hit the track on Friday, which was also good,” he added.

James has little time to savour his new silverware as he heads to the penultimate round of the Italian Open Masters championship at Garda next weekend. After visiting the podium in France and with no title at stake in Italy, he’s going to aim for more trophies and glory.

“I’m not in with a chance of taking the title in the Italian Open series,” he said. “So, I’m going to go out there to get onto the podium again and make sure that I show the rest of the KF2 class that I am capable of getting the results,” he added.

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