Kart racing star Jack Harvey narrowly missed out on a podium result in the CIK FIA Asia Pacific KF1 championship in Macau at the weekend. However, the reigning KF2 champion sealed his place in the top flight of karting as he took fifth place and the honour of being the top British driver over the course of the meeting.
Factory Birel Motorsport driver Harvey started his weekend off well, claiming a spot inside the top ten in qualifying, just three tenths of a second away from reigning KF1 World Champion Marco Ardigo. In both of the heats he drove hard to take fifth place finishes, putting him fourth on the grid for the pre-final.
A great race allowed Jack to work his way to the front by the mid-way point, but he had to settle for fourth place at the chequered flag. This would leave Jack once again in fourth place for the Grand Final and a chance to take another title, this time on his debut in the top flight.
Jack got a great start as the lights went green. However, he was unable to get onto the back of the race leader and slotted into second and prepared for a tough fight for the 25-lap race.
At just before half-distance he dropped back to third place and despite intense pressure from the casing pair behind, he was on course for a fantastic podium finish. But, with just nine laps left to run, he suffered a radiator problem and as his engine lost water he also lost power and on the final lap he tried to defend his position but found he didn’t have the power to cover it to the line and was forced to settle for fifth place.
Despite not getting the result that looked possible, Harvey was incredibly pleased with his weekend, especially against such top class opposition.
"I came out here with the intention on going for a podium finish and showing my pace against some of the best KF1 racers in the world," he said. "A few people might think that fifth is a poor result, but we were on course for the podium in the final and there was nothing I could have done about."
"Everything worked really well all weekend. The kart and engine were brilliant and the whole Birel team was strong. At the end of the weekend I wanted people to take notice of me and the fact that I’m ready to race at the highest level in karting and not settle for anything less that top results and I think I’ve achieved that this weekend," he added.
"Obviously we’ve got to work harder at this level, but everyone is doing and I’m really looking forward to the start of the 2009 season now, I can’t wait!" said Jack. |
