Jordan King still has ambitions to join the Formula 1 field in 2017 despite feeling his 2016 GP2 Series campaign did not go to plan for the young Briton.
King finished seventh in the championship with Racing Engineering in 2016 despite two wins, with his end of season inconsistent form costing him a shot at the championship, although he did have two free practice outings with the Manor Racing MRT team at Austin and in Abu Dhabi.
“I want to make it to F1, so I’ll do whatever it takes to get there,” said King to Motorsport.com. “My chance is as good as any, but there are six or seven drivers going for two or three seats. The deadline only comes when all the seats are taken.”
“Looking back, we could easily have been fighting for the [GP2] championship but we made too many mistakes along the way. The goal was to always to challenge for the title, and mid-season we were looking strong.
“After Silverstone I was only 13 points off the lead and it was all still to play for. But as the year went on, the consistency wasn’t there.”
King admits that another year in GP2 is certainly possible after testing with Russian Time and MP Motorsport in the post-season tests in Abu Dhabi, but knows that if he repeats some of the mistakes that affected him during 2016 that it could have a seriously negative affect on his career ambitions.
“I think I still have more to prove,” admitted King. “I’ve won races, so I’ve proved what I’m capable of, but I think there is more to prove in terms of the whole championship.
“It was a bit annoying to only finish the year seventh, but if you stay for another year and make the same mistakes again, it can harm you.
“So I don’t know what I’ll do next year. My goal has always been to be in F1, but motorsport often isn’t as easy as it looks and there’s a lot more to it than just being the best driver. If doing a good job was all you needed to do, there would be 50 drivers in F1. But there are only 22.”
