This year’s event also has historic significance, as it will be the famous circuit’s last before the developers move in and convert the facility into - what is believed to be - a hypermarket.

Robert’s triumph sealed what had been a textbook weekend for the 18-year old. Fastest in timed qualifying, he won both his heats to secure pole for the final – from where he was barely troubled as he took a lights-to-flag victory.

He said, “The weekend was perfect from start to finish. You can’t ask for more. If only every meeting was like that! I just hope we can do it again (in the second-leg).”

Foster-Jones returns to Italy this weekend (18/19 October), for the concluding race - and is keen to add the Industrial title to an already full trophy cabinet.

Photo: Chris Walker/Kartpix.net

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In timed qualifying, he astonished seasoned onlookers - posting the 2nd fastest time, just behind Ricky Flynn Motorsport team-mate, Robert Foster-Jones.

Amongst a quality field of 94 other drivers from across Europe, he then showed his potential by finishing in 3rd in his first heat, before winning the 2nd.

This put him alongside Foster-Jones on the front row of the grid for the final.

A slip-up at the start saw Mackenzie lose places as the 34-kart pack plunged into the first corner. However, he kept his cool and soon began chipping his way back up the order.

By lap 10, he was in 2nd and could see Foster-Jones ahead - and set about reeling him in. A series of fast laps saw Mackenzie close the gap from over three seconds, down to just four tenths of a second.

The pair set-up a grandstand finish as they entered the last lap. Foster-Jones coolly took the win, with Taylor opting not to make a rash challenge for the lead.

“I bet you weren’t expecting that!” Mackenzie said afterwards. “That was a good result with what little time I’ve had (in KF2). I can only get faster from here. 2nd place is an excellent start to my KF2 career and is a great incentive for me to keep pushing.”

Team boss, Ricky Flynn was also delighted, saying - “That was more than okay. They both did very well. Everyone worked very hard all weekend and you get out what you put in. Let’s just hope we can do it again this Sunday.”

Mackenzie and the team return to Parma for this weekend’s (18/19 October) concluding part of the annual event. With three points separating them, the return encounter is sure to be even more thrilling.

Photo: Martin Capenhurst

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Indeed, overcoming the odds has been something of a hallmark of Ash’s fledgling motorsport career, and off the back of a superb maiden national Mini Max campaign in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – the same series that first set no less than Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to Formula 1 superstardom – that yielded a top ten championship placing out of more than 50 competitors, the young Nuneaton ace decided to step up a gear by making his Junior Max debut, as he prepares to graduate to the more powerful class in 2009.

“We had tested my old Mini Max around Whilton and had gone round PF International a bit in the Junior Max,” he related. “After that, we thought we would be fast enough to go and race at Whilton, and in any case we knew it would be good purely from an experience point-of-view. I’d say we went there to learn, but with the target of finishing inside the top three.

“The first time we got out in the Junior Max around Whilton was in practice that weekend. The power is the main difference and, because of my weight, the Junior Max feels much easier to drive – and a lot more fun!

“We knew we would have the pace; I just had to drive well enough, be assertive in my overtaking and not be bullied out of any positions. It’s much harder racing in Junior Max, so it was all about my confidence.”

Not only is Whilton one of Ash’s favourite circuits in the country with its mixture of slow and fast corners, it is also, he confesses, probably the one he knows his way around best – not, however, he pointed out, that such knowledge was of any particular use this time.

“It took me about two sessions to get used to the kart,” the 14-year-old explained, “then we just had to concentrate on learning the different lines you need to take around the circuit in a Junior Max, because you have more power going into the corners.

“Practice went well. We had really old tyres on and were just two tenths off the pace all day, then in the third and fourth sessions we put a new set of rubber on and were able to go three tenths quicker than anyone else managed for the rest of the day. That was a good confidence boost, and the kart felt great.”

Amongst a bumper field of some 24 drivers – including Stars front-runners and club title protagonists Brad Smith and Alex Magee – Ash certainly made an impression in his first heat, which he started from a lowly 20th place. Despite being knocked off-course on the opening tour, he quickly composed himself and displayed both his fighting spirit and devastating pace to storm his way back up through the order into the top ten at the chequered flag, with the race’s fastest lap time to his name for good measure as an indication of what might have been.

“I made up about four positions at the start which was good,” the George Eliot School pupil reflected, “then going into a left-hander after the hairpin on the new part of the circuit, the driver ahead of me turned in as I was going for a move. My kart was sent up in the air and I ended up facing the wrong way.

“After that I had to get back on-track and regain my focus, and I managed to battle my way back from 23rd to ninth. It wasn’t too hard until I got up to about 15th place, and then it got a bit tougher because the drivers had got more spread out and the better ones had worked their way towards the front.

“Motivation certainly wasn’t a problem, though – I think it’s quite easy to motivate yourself if you really want to win. I was happy with where I finished given where I’d had to come from, but the collision just made me even more determined for the following two heats.”

Heat two saw Ash work his way up through the pack from 12th on the grid to go on to wage a close duel with Ben Walker for supremacy, finally getting past his quarry on the penultimate tour and going on to prevail by just over seven tenths of a second, again with substantially the fastest lap to his name.

A brilliant getaway in the third and last heat, meanwhile, propelled him from seventh up to third by the first turn, and from there the P1 Racing star rapidly assumed a lead that he would never relinquish, going on to cross the finish line some 1.6 seconds ahead of closest pursuer Aaron Head – and in so doing earn himself an undisputed pole position for the all-important final.

“I was feeling confident because of the way I had come through the pack in the heats and just driven away from them,” he underlined. “I got a good start and held onto the lead for the first four laps before Brad Smith came past.

“When I wanted to make a move I could do; I had the pace in the places where I needed it. Thanks to my mechanics Sam Smith and Richard Amos my kart was set up great all weekend, so that I had the performance where I needed it to be able to overtake.

“I pushed Brad for three laps and then his back bumper came loose and snapped going along the straight, when I was about a kart length behind him. I overtook him and so did Magee, and after that Alex was about two lengths behind me for the rest of the race and doing the same sort of lap times, but never really close enough to challenge.

“I was good on the brakes too, which meant he didn’t have much chance to get past me, and that allowed me to just concentrate on my own race.”

Confident he would still have won even without Smith’s errant bumper that ultimately led to the latter’s retirement, the Maple Park teenager acknowledged that his first Junior Max victory in his first competitive meeting had been the perfect way to begin his preparations for 2009 – when ambitions will be raised considerably higher still.

“I was really, really happy to have won my first-ever Junior Max race,” he concluded, “and it was a big confidence boost for next year. Now I just need to keep building on that.”

Photo: Chris Manison

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Michael Cullen in the No 15 CRS Ferrari was being rapidly caught by Allan Simonsen in the Christians in Motorsport Ferrari and the two cars were nose to tail as the race entered the final lap. A suspension failure on the last lap put the Jones Ascari out of contention and while Jeremy Metcalfe celebrated victory Cullen’s Ferrari got out of shape coming out of the last corner allowing Simonsen to get alongside and the two Ferrari’s crossed the line side by side with Cullen getting the nod by 0.073 seconds.

Matt Nicol-Jones and Stewart Linn took their 8th win of the year in the GT4 Class and the newly crowned class champions have finished on the podium in all of the 14 races this season.

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A rain hit qualifying session had given Alguersuari a twelve grid position advantage over Turvey for the final race. The Spaniard overtook pole position holder Oli Oakes at the first corner and never looked troubled for the rest of the 29 lap race. Nick Tandy took his best British F3 finish in second and Sergio Perez completed his year with a podium in 3rd. Turvey had been making progress up the order when a clash with Marcus Ericsson ended his hopes of lifting the British F3 crown.

Henry Surtees won the first National Class encounter of the day in his first ever British F3 race and followed this up with a second place finish in the final round just behind 2008 National Class Champion Jay Bridger.

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The young Harbury ace is a regular front-runner in Stars’ – the same series that first discovered Hamilton and set him on the fast track to where he is now – and headed to Shenington in Oxfordshire with one set objective…victory.

“I was no longer in with a chance of winning the title,” he explained, “so I just wanted to do the best I could and see how far up that would move me in the championship. I’ve driven quite a few laps at Shenington in my career; I like the track – it’s a very quick circuit – and I’m usually fast round there, so I was definitely feeling confident going into the weekend.

“We went out for a couple of sessions on the Friday, but as most were extremely wet and we were expecting it to be a dry weekend, we decided to not do much running and simply save the tyres and engine instead. When we were on the track, though, the kart felt really good, we had the power where we needed it and we were really fast.”

That much would be corroborated the following day, when a trio of heat races sensationally yielded two victories and a runner-up spot amongst a field of some 36 competitors. After simply driving away from the opposition in the first outing, Jordan displayed phenomenal speed in heat two to storm his way through the pack from 21st on the grid and steal the win from pole-sitter Paul hardy on the very last tour – with a fastest lap time more than three tenths of a second quicker than anyone else to boot – before finishing second from 13th in heat three, barely a second away from the race-winner. It was, by any standards, a spectacular set of results.

“I hadn’t expected we would do quite that well,” the 14-year-old candidly acknowledged. “I had thought we might win one heat and finish inside the top five in the other two.

“In heat two I was second coming onto the last lap, but there was a little bit of a gap to Hardy so I didn’t think I would be able to get him. He didn’t defend very well, though, which allowed me to just get up the inside of him. Everything felt really good, and that was a very satisfying result.

“In the third heat we weren’t quite as quick; we had lost a bit of time, and we couldn’t quite work out where we had lost it. We had gone a little bit richer with the engine, but perhaps we had gone a bit too far. I still did well to get up to second place, though, and we were happy with that; we just knew we needed to find the time again before the final.”

Indeed, the plethora of passing opportunities around the fast and flowing Shenington layout played right into the hands of one of the championship’s very best exponents of the overtaking move, and from pole position in the all-important final hopes were undoubtedly high. Jordan’s advantage did not last long, however, as in endeavouring to cover eventual champion Callum Bowyer at the start, Jacob Stilp was able to get by the pair of them and into the lead.

“I was running up in the top three and with the front group,” he recalled of the race’s progression. “We weren’t the quickest out there, but with the tow you get around Shenington I knew we could stay with the leaders, so we still had a chance of winning it.

“I then got tangled up in the pack when Henry Hunter put me off in the middle of the race, and I ended up finishing fourth. I was quite disappointed with the end result, as it hadn’t been my fault. We were just a bit unlucky again…”

Indeed, Lady Luck has invariably not been on Jordan’s side as the 2008 campaign has worn on, and she would abandon him again the very next day, as a close second place to Bowyer in his opening heat unfortunately heralded something of a false dawn.

“It was quite close with Callum,” he related, “but I didn’t want to do anything too silly and neither did he, because he was fighting for the championship. He just defended his line on the last lap, and there wasn’t really too much point in making a lunge.”

Having taken the chequered flag a mere 16 hundredths adrift, the Repton School pupil again proved himself to be by some margin the quickest driver on the track in heat two – this time by a staggering four tenths of a second – rising from 20th on the grid to fourth with just two laps remaining, when exiting the chicane he found himself pushed off from behind, costing him several positions and leaving him seventh at the flag. Doubtless fired up by another strong result stolen from his grasp, Jordan charged through the field from 15th to triumph in heat three, placing him fourth on the grid for the last final of the season.

“I had a really good start in the third heat,” he confessed, “which helped a lot, and I managed to avoid a crash on the outside. That left me seventh, and after that I slowly worked my way up from there.

“I then really wanted to win the final, because I hadn’t won on the Saturday and we knew we had some good pace. We found out what the problem had been in Saturday’s final and Sunday’s heats – an axle bearing had seized up, which meant that it felt like I had an extra brake when going round corners.

“We then had another problem in Sunday’s final, though, when the brake cable burst, which left us with no fluid in the brakes. There were five rolling-up laps; towards the end of them I could feel the brakes were starting to go a little bit, and throughout the race they just got worse and worse and worse. I just found myself going backwards without being able to do anything about it. It was a very disappointing way to end the season.”

Crossing the finish line an unlucky 13th, Jordan reflected that he was frustrated with the overall balance of his season – one which nonetheless ended with him sitting a strong sixth out of 51 drivers in the Mini Max championship table, with victory in the final at Whilton Mill along the way. He blamed a slow start that had put him on the back foot from the word ‘go’ – and in a series as fiercely-fought as is Stars, once behind it is fiendishly difficult to make up ground again.

Taking away the Lewis Hamilton ‘True Grit’ Award from Shenington, however – presented to the driver who has made up the most number of places from his grid positions during the course of a round, and available to any one of Stars’ 214 competitors, making the achievement no mean feat – and the signed cap and T-shirt that went with it, Jordan has now vowed to look forwards and focus on both his debut in the Spanish Karting Championship at Zaragoza in the KF3 class, and his Super 1 Series title showdown with Bowyer at Three Sisters near Wigan.

“It will be the first time I’ve raced in Spain,” he confessed of his upcoming Aragonese appearance, “and it should be a lot of fun. As to Super 1, I’ve got to try and not think about the championship and just drive the best I can, but it’s always there in the back of your mind. I’ve got to effectively win both finals and hope Callum doesn’t finish very high up.

“We’ve got everything sorted now with the engine and the chassis, so we’ve got to make the win happen for us and hope Callum has a bad meeting. We’ve got nothing to lose in the championship so we’re just going to go into the last round and give it our all.”

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On October 4 and 5, the last round of the WSK (Winning Series Karting) was held at Zuera, under a warm Spanish sun. Near Zaragoza, the Maranello brand was once again well represented in the KF2 and KF3 categories by drivers of different nationalities.

In the qualifying phase, Finnish Aaro Vainio honoured his recent title of European KF3 champion by finishing 3rd, 2ndand 6threspectively in his heats. Always close to the leading group, Portuguese Da Luz and Russian Maxim Zimin showed some good performances, while Eduard Cheever set the best lap in race. Among the fastest during Saturday morning’s warm-up, Finnish Mikko Pakari and British Mitchell Hale had some solid arguments to present, just like Spanish Kevin Tenorio and Russian Edward Frolenkov, who also qualified for the final phase.

Unfortunately, there were several collisions that were often fatal to the men in red and yellow. After a superb recovery following his withdrawal in the pre-final, Vainio managed to increase points accumulated so far and was 7th in the overall WSK ranking, behind promising Kevin Ceccon. Ceccon took advantage of this race in order to show his talent in KF2. As for the Maranello Kart Team, it finished the Eurocup (team ranking) with an excellent third place.

In KF2, James Thorp and Zdenek Groman made an excellent race and found themselves in a position to fight for victory in the final, the former with a Maxter engine and the latter with a Parilla.

Winner of two heats, the Brit confirmed the power of his equipment by conquering a second place in the pre-final. In the final, however, he had a collision and was forced to abandon owing to a problem with the shaft.

Third at the last World Cup, Groman could have repeated his extraordinary performance, but he had an ignition problem on the final, before the start, where the Czech driver occupied the fourth place. But when he finally managed to start, he staged a superb recovery up to 10th place. After a fourth best time during practice, British Luke Wright was haunted by bad luck. Winner at Sarno, Thorp finished the WSK in 5th place, while the Maranello Kart Team was 4th in the Eurocup.

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O n the fast circuit near Zaragoza, Jonathan Thonon did everything he could at the wheel of his kart, which he drove with his usual ability. “Already in timed qualifying, my team mate Rick Dreezen and I had a remarkable time advantage over our opponents, therefore we were optimistic about the race, just like the other CRG team members”, Jonathan commented.

The supremacy of his CRG-Maxter, whose engines are prepared in France by Tec’Sav, emerged clearly during the races. “I immediately won the first heat with the best lap, and then the second. So I gained access to the pole position in the pre-final, which I won ahead of Rick”.

In the final, the start was fundamental… “Unlike European and World CIK/FIA events, the WSK organisation does not use any cameras to check the starts. And in the final, I thought I had started immediately after the lights went off, but some of my opponents was already gone! I was third and when I reached the second place, Rick Dreezen had already gained a remarkable advantage. Since we drove at the same pace, I could not fill in the gap, therefore I decided to content my self with another double success for CRG, Maxter, Tec’Sav and… Belgium!”

Already European champion and winner of the World Cup, Jonathan finished the WSK in third place, despite a few problems he experienced during the races. “I dedicate this new podium to all my team and my loyal partners. I can already tell them that my 2009 schedule will be even busier, with a stronger presence in KF1, a category that receives a wide TV coverage on Eurosport”.

Jonathan Thonon has always been very competitive in this top category, so much so that he is one of the candidates to the title in KZ1. The future promises to be very successful for the Belgian driver…

In the meanwhile, Jonathan is leaving for Las Vegas, where he will race for CRG and Maxter at a prestigious and popular event in the States. There, as well, media will be everywhere…

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