Fired-up Hawksworth ready to ‘throw caution to the wind’

Exciting young karting star Jack Hawksworth may have seen his chances of lifting the laurels in the prestigious CIK-FIA European KZ2 Championship snatched away from him by foul play on the part of one of his rivals – but he acknowledges that with nothing left to lose, he will be going all-out for glory in the final round of the 2008 campaign.

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Photo: Kartpix

The Bradford teenager travelled to the second of three meetings in the fiercely-competitive series at Mariembourg in Belgium ready to prove his mettle up against a staggering 103 competitors representing the crème de la crème of international opposition – and his weekend began in generally positive fashion.

“Practice went quite well,” he related, “but though the handling of the kart was spot-on all the way through we still couldn’t quite find the right set-up.”

Lapping a superb second-quickest outright in qualifying, the 17-year-old missed out on the top spot by a scant two thousandths of a second, and was a full 70 places ahead of his PDB Racing team-mate. The only British driver in the bumper field then went on to convert that stellar opening into three victories and a brace of runner-up spots in his five heats, taking fastest lap in two of them for good measure and leaving him sitting third in the intermediate rankings.

“In the third heat I had a bit of a disaster off the start-line,” he admitted. “I don’t know if it was me or the clutch or what, but the kart just bogged down and left me in about sixth position. I managed to come back through to second place, though.

“Overall the results were good, but the chassis just didn’t feel right; it felt like I was on a knife-edge all the way round the circuit. I didn’t have the level of grip I had been expecting to have. We knew we were quick on new tyres, but as the tyres went off the kart became more difficult to handle, which made me think it might not be possible to get the maximum out of the weekend.

“Mariembourg isn’t a bad circuit for overtaking; the problem just seems to be with that specific tyre which is used in the championship. When the pace is similar you can’t overtake with those tyres, which makes the races quite processional. The tyres are hard, and no one can get enough grip out of them which in-turn means that you can’t get close enough to someone to try to get past.

“I was only sixth or seventh-fastest in the heats on old tyres, but because I had started at the front I was able to stay there. For the finals everyone was back on new tyres again, though, so I was fairly confident I could still win.”

That, however, was pretty much where Jack’s strong run would come to an abrupt end, as the unwelcome intervention of the team-mate of one of his chief rivals for the title saw him unceremoniously pitched off the circuit in the opening final on the very first lap – and left him to begin the second final from all the way down in 33rd position out of 34 drivers.

“I got into the first corner and got a bump from behind,” he recounted. “The same thing happened in the second and third corners too, and as I came out of the third one Mathias Gallepe came alongside and deliberately drove into the side of me so that his Energy Corse team-mate Tony Lavanant could win the race.

“As soon as the race started it became clear he wanted me off the circuit. The kart was completely totalled, with front end damage to the track rod and steering column in particular. I was mightily angry, but in the end I just had to calm myself down and get on with concentrating on the next race.

“I got a decent start in the second final and was up to 26th by the first half of lap one, but then someone spun in front of me and I went the wrong way and had to take to the grass in avoidance to stop him from going into me. That left me dead last again, and though the kart didn’t feel quite the same as it had done previously, I managed to come back to 16th at the chequered flag.

“That in itself was a bit annoying, because just one more place would have meant I got a point, but then I guess on a weekend like that one point or nothing doesn’t really make much difference really. My pace was really good – if I had started near the front I would have had a strong chance of winning.”

Lying seventh in the European title standings, the coveted crown may now be gone but third position – currently held tantalisingly by his nemesis Gallepe – is decidedly within reach, just 20 points away with 50 left to play for in the final outing at Varennes in France in early September.

“A top three position in the championship is certainly still possible,” the former BRDC Stars of Tomorrow front-runner underlined. “That would be nice, and we know we are going to be quick around Varennes and that the kart should work well there. We have to go there aiming to win both races, and I’m very confident we can do just that.

“If I hadn’t got the ten-second jump-start penalty at Angerville or had the crash at Mariembourg, and had instead collected those points that got away, I basically could have driven around in the last meeting with my feet up in the air.

“These things happen, though, and overall for my first year in the Europeans, I don’t think it’s been a bad year at all. It seems I have no luck whatsoever at Mariembourg and I left there with a feeling of real disappointment, but when I got back home I just put it behind me and focussed on getting my revenge on the track in the WSK.”

The WSK International Series to which he refers is the other major championship in which the 2007 British ICC Vice-Champion and 2006 Junior Max European Champion and Junior Max Vice-World Champion is racing this year, and if anything the competition is even tougher than in the Europeans – with Jack once more the only Brit amongst 72 extremely high-calibre KZ1 and KZ2 entrants.

“I went there targeting a top six finish overall,” he said of his latest outing around the challenging Sarno circuit in southern Italy, which took place amidst stifling temperatures of almost 40 degrees, “but then we had a really bad practice. We were so far off the pace – 1.5 seconds – it was unbelievable. There were problems with the chassis, problems with the engine – problems with everything you could think of.

“We changed a lot of things for qualifying, and that seemed to make a bit of a difference as I lined up 31st. After that we kept working on both the chassis and engine and managed to make the kart feel a lot better in time for the heats.”

After charging his way up the order into eighth position from 15th on the grid in his opening heat – setting a better fastest lap time than the race-winner to boot – Jack matched that result in heat two, again proving himself to be one of the very quickest drivers on the circuit. Indeed, it was all looking good once more in heat three, until…

“I dropped a wheel onto the grass and just threw myself off the road,” he rued. “I was coming through again and was up to tenth – and could probably have finished sixth or seventh – but we all make mistakes sometimes, don’t we? We worked out that cost me tenth on the grid for the pre-final, instead of which I ended up starting 22nd.

“Then before the pre-final we changed the cylinder head on the engine because it had looked like it was about to seize. We decided to play cautiously with that, but unfortunately the new cylinder barrel had a problem and we were really slow, finishing 18th.

“For the final we therefore threw caution to the wind and put the old barrel back on and just went for it. Immediately the kart felt good again and the pace was there. It was a good final and I was quite happy with the result – 11th matched the best finish we’ve had in a WSK second final all year, with a lap time just two tenths off that of the race-winner Marco Ardigo, and fifth place overall in KZ2.

“If I had started towards the front, though, for sure I would have been battling for a position inside the top five outright, which is where we want to be at the moment. It was certainly frustrating not to have been able to do that, but just look at the people we overtook to come through the field – Francesco Laudato, all but one of the Birel factory drivers, Jorrit Pex, Lavanant – drivers who have the capability of being up in the top two or three. It was particularly good to beat Pex; that was a nice revenge for having just lost out to him in the 2006 World Finals.”

Those performances see the Gillard-shod ace sitting 12th in the standings with just the fourth and final meeting at Zuera in Spain in early October now left on the calendar, a mere three points shy of the top ten and – with some further improvements to come before then – in bullish spirits.

“To have had top five pace was very encouraging ahead of the last round,” he acknowledged, “and when we get a bit of luck going our way we can certainly finish up there too. That’s what I’m aiming for at Zuera – if not even a little bit higher…

“I doubt we can win the final round of the WSK, but when you’re not fighting for the championship anymore, of course you can just throw caution to the wind and go all-out.

“The equipment feels good, I feel good and I know that together we can fight really hard. I want to bounce back from the disappointment we’ve had recently – and prove I’m one of the best in the world.”

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