Harry King has described being awarded his maiden Ginetta Junior Championship race victory in the stewards room at Snetterton as an “unexpected bonus” from a “brilliant” weekend.
The 15 year old’s meeting had begun with a worrying lack of pace in Friday practice, which led to his Elite Motorsport team electing to switch him to the spare car for the weekend.
Despite it being a new car to King heading into qualifying, the Berkshire-based racer produced blistering pace to put himself third overall on the grid.
King would convert that into a fourth place finish in the opening race, and after narrowly missing out on a first outright podium finish in that race, he would go on to achieve just that in race two.
It didn’t start well for King who found himself shuffled back to fifth on the opening lap, but from there he put himself right in the thick of a thrilling four car battle for the win.
King would eventually cross the line in a superb second position, but a post-race penalty for the on-the-road victor would promote him to a maiden race victory.
“It’s turned out to be a brilliant weekend, and it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting on Friday when we just didn’t have the pace to challenge,” said King, who has moved into the championship top ten.
“Luckily the team was able to prepare the spare car for me for Saturday, and the fact I was up to speed straightaway showed it was right call from the team to change the car at that time.
“Discovering that I’d been given the race two win was an unexpected bonus, and while it isn’t the way I want to take a victory, I’m certainly not going to turn it down.
“The points this weekend have been brilliant and are by far my best haul this season, so we’ve moved up the standings and it’s given me a fantastic boost in confidence for the rest of the season.”
