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Lincolnshire-based kart champion Jack Harvey
took a hard-earned fifth overall in the qualifying event for the European
Championship in Alcaniz in Spain over the weekend. The result marks
the 15 year-old out as one of the favourites to repeat his 2007 success of
becoming European Champion.
The factory Birel Motorsport
driver dominated the KF2 class throughout the course of the weekend, claiming
first, second, third and fourth place finishes in his four heats on Saturday.
With the most consistent results of the entire Western Region field, it put him
on pole position for the first of the two all-important finals on
Sunday.
In the first race Newark Steel
backed Jack made a superb start but a small error meant that he briefly lost the
lead. However, in what has become his trademark attacking style, he was back in
the lead within a handful of laps and took a great victory which lined him up
for pole for the grand final later in the day.
All of Jack and his team’s
hard work was almost written off though, when at the start of the second final
he was forced off the circuit and into the gravel trap. An incredibly fired-up
Jack managed to get back onto the circuit, albeit back in last place, with just
15 laps to try and make his way back up the order.
A stunning drive meant that he
had moved back up an incredible 12 positions on his first flying lap to be up to
22nd place. A brilliant drive over the next dozen laps allowed him to
finally cross the line in 16th place, good enough to give him a fifth
place finish in the aggregate standings over the course of the weekend. The
drive was made even more remarkable when the team checked the kart after the
race and found a number of bent components that were caused in the first corner
incident.
The result once again marks
him out as one of the drivers to beat in the senior category and, despite the
frustrating grand final, Jack was pleased with how the weekend had
gone.
“We actually had a really good
weekend,” he said. “We weren’t the fastest in free practice and qualifying, but
the race pace was brilliant and everything was really strong. The chassis, the
engine, it was all working really well.
“I felt really confident going
into the weekend and once we got into the heats I felt really comfortable and I
was able to push more and more and the results just came to me. I went into the
second final knowing that I could win it and definitely had that aim as we set
off from the grid.
“It was obviously
disappointing to be taken out like that so early on. I pushed as hard as I
possibly could when I got back onto the track, but I knew the kart wasn’t one
hundred percent after the accident and I didn’t have the laps available to try
and go for a podium finish. We
proved that we’re one of the teams to beat when we get around to the finals
though.
“I’m full of confidence for
the second half of the season as I know that we have everything in place now to
take some big victories and I’m going to go out every time to do just that,” he
added.
Jack has no time to rest before getting back
out on track, with the latest round of the Winning Series of Karting taking
place next weekend in Sarno in Italy .
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