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Young Bradford karting star Jack Hawksworth has rebounded from a torrid few weeks with a searing performance in the second round of the hotly-contested German DKM Championship at Wackersdorf – leaving all 65 of his international rivals trailing in his wheeltracks in the sprint final for a consummate triumph that has set his 2009 challenge right back on-track.

Jack certainly did not enjoy the greatest build-up to the weekend, having been eliminated on the opening lap in the curtain-raising meeting at Oschersleben back in April when – following a victory and third place finish in his two heat races – he was unceremoniously shunted from behind at the start, putting him out of contention on the spot.

Following that, there was a similarly disappointing outcome to his bid for glory in the prestigious CIK-FIA European Championship at La Conca in southern Italy. Having gone into the event as favourite to lift the laurels, the Energy Corse ace lived up to his billing in securing top three finishes in all five of his heats and set a trio of fastest laps to-boot, before being punted out of third place not far into the grand final. Heading to Wackersdorf, his outstanding success in the 20th edition of the Margutti Trophy just over two months earlier seemed a distant memory indeed.
“We’ve had a few unlucky weekends recently, so I was really fired-up,” he underlined. “I was nowhere in the championship table after Oschersleben, so I had nothing to lose and everything to gain and definitely wasn’t planning on taking any prisoners!”

Up against a high calibre of opposition including the likes of KZ2 class front-runners Manuel Renaudie, Thomas Mich, Jorrit Pex and Rick Dreezen, Jack overcame a lack of experience of the Bavarian circuit – having only been there once before, finishing a very competitive second in the ADAC German Championship three weeks previously despite struggling with tyre-warming issues – to prove to be rapidly on the leading pace in practice, but qualifying would be a different story.

“We qualified tenth overall, which wasn’t too good,” he related. “We had been very fast in practice on old tyres, but when we put new rubber on for qualifying, for some reason we went backwards. We lost four or five tenths, but the team did a really good job to quickly adapt the chassis to the tyres and we solved the problem in time for the heats.”

Beginning each of his three, 30-strong heat races fifth, the 18-year-old survived contact in the first of them that limited him to the same position at the chequered flag and took a brace of runner-up spots later on, earning him fourth on the grid for the sprint final – which he would win quite literally at a canter.
“We were unbelievably competitive,” he acknowledged. “We barely needed to push throughout the race. I had expected it to be a lot tougher, because we hadn’t thought we’d have quite that much performance. The kart was superb from start to finish – one of those occasions where everything just clicks together and you’re able to drive away from everyone. I took the lead on lap two and then pulled out a really big gap. The race was red-flagged halfway through, but I was able to pull away again.

“Unfortunately, the grand final didn’t go at all to plan. We had scored some good points in the first final, and we were aiming to get some more in the second – and I was very confident we could get the job done and win both races. My start was ok, but Mich alongside me made a really good one and got past into the lead. I wasn’t worried, though, because I knew we had set the kart up to come on more towards the middle and end of the race, so getting overtaken at the start wasn’t a disaster.

“Verdi Geurts then passed me too on new tyres, but I had been almost half a second faster than both of them in the sprint, so I was still confident of being able to get the lead back. Then, on lap four, my team-mate Paolo de Conto must have missed his braking point or something, because he ran into the back of me at the first hairpin and took me off the circuit. That dropped me down to 30th and last, a quarter of a lap behind the field. He apologised afterwards and explained that it had just been a mistake, so there’s no point in holding any kind of grudge.”
Admitting that the incident had been ‘character-building’ and ‘completely out of his hands’ – ‘that’s racing,’ he mused – Jack did well to fight his way back through the pack to 16th at the close, but still the end result was undeniably a frustrating one. The second-fastest lap time of the race only went to show what might have been, and the coming-together has left him just ninth in the title chase – far below where he had wanted to be.

Nonetheless, the weekend at least proved that the former Junior Max Vice-World Champion, Junior Max European Champion and British ICC Vice-Champion is bang on the pace, and he can return to Wackersdorf for the deciding round of the CIK-FIA European Championship at the end of the month in positive spirits – and knowing that there are more upgrades and improvements still to come. Insisting that – despite sitting only sixth in the standings – his chances of lifting the European KZ2 crown are ‘by no means over’, he is fully focussed on a double victory…and on current form it would be a brave man indeed to bet against him.

“I’ve just got to get on with my job and keep trying to get results,” he concluded. “It was still pleasing to get back on the scoreboard with quite a big haul of points after all the bad luck of the previous races, and to be battling up at the front again was really good. We found a lot of pace in testing and over the weekend with some of the new things we tried, so I’m sure we’re going to bounce back.

“I have faith in both myself and the team, and I believe we have the equipment at our feet to get the job done. I’m really determined now, and we will all be giving 120 per cent effort to finish on the top step of the podium. I expect us to be well-and-truly back in business at the next race – and very hard to beat!”

Photo by Chris Walker