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Warwickshire karting star Jordan King did not enjoy the best of fortunes during his ‘home’ meeting at Shenington in the second round of the 2009 British Super 1 Championship – but in trying circumstances he nevertheless produced a fine performance that has kept him firmly in the hunt for title glory.

Close to Banbury, Shenington might be Jordan’s nearest circuit, but having never competed in the club championship there he is not afforded the same advantage that ‘local specialists’ often enjoy. Still, with pole position there last year in BRDC Stars of Tomorrow – now the Lewis Hamilton and Bernie Ecclestone-backed Formula Kart Stars – fourth place in Super 1 in 2008 and sixth position in the 2009 Winter Series, it is a track at which he boasts a good record.

“I like Shenington,” the 15-year-old acknowledged. “It’s a fast circuit and one that’s pretty good fun to drive. The first Super 1 round hadn’t gone great, so we were just aiming to make up as much ground as we could really on the leaders. I was feeling quite confident, but equally you know it’s never going to be easy. Every weekend in the series is different.”
Indeed, with a hotly-contested, 36-strong KF3 class field populated by the likes of defending British Champion Jake Dennis, Red Bull-backed European star Alex Albon, 2008 British Mini Max Champion Callum Bowyer and Ultimate Motorsport front-runner Macaulay Walsh, securing a strong result was going to be no mean feat.
What’s more, handling woes and a down-on-power engine around one of the most power-dependent tracks in the country put Jordan onto the back foot right from the word ‘go’, so fifth spot in qualifying, less than two tenths of a second shy of pole position, was a laudable effort.

“I’d thought we’d be able to do quite well on new tyres in qualifying,” he explained, “but I only actually got one flying lap before the carb went down. I reckon if we’d been able to do a couple more flying laps we could have done a bit better, but I was quite happy with fifth in the circumstances, and it proved that we had the pace.”

The heat races would subsequently yield a brace of solid results, though the Harbury ace was not truly on the leading pace in either. A bright start to the first of them saw him run an encouraging third for the opening five laps, but his lack of grunt from the engine would eventually prove telling as he powerlessly slipped back to sixth at the chequered flag. He would add to that with fourth place in heat two, earning him sixth spot on the grid for the first of the two all-important finals – from where he was forced to revise his objectives to aim simply for a couple of top ten finishes.
“The kart was sliding around a lot and we were still struggling for power from the engine,” Jordan recounted of his difficulties in the heats. “Over a single lap we were alright, but over a full race distance we just couldn’t keep up. I wasn’t happy with the results, but they were the best we could do with what we had.

“In the first final again we couldn’t really stay with the leaders and ended up seventh. The second final got red-flagged twice, but at the second re-start I just kept everything steady and managed to come home sixth.”

Now fifth in the drivers’ standings, a mere four points shy of third, Jordan recognised that he had extracted the maximum from a bad weekend – and as an exercise in damage limitation his performance was faultless. Following a well-deserved break, he heads next to Rowrah in Cumbria – a tortuous and challenging track where the Repton School pupil has an impressive résumé, having taken a win and a second place there in Super 1 last year.

“It was pleasing to score some good points towards the championship and to close up on some of the drivers ahead of me,” he summarised of his Shenington outing. “The championship is still very open; I’m only 32 points behind the leader, so if he has a bad round at Rowrah and I have two good finals, I can easily catch up again.”

Photo by Chris Walker