“That sent my head into a bit of a downer,” he admitted. “I wasn't as focussed as I had been on the Saturday and I needed to recover. I just lost my head a bit in the last two heats, but before the final I had a talk with my mechanic and knuckled down again.
“We knew we had a couple of tenths under our belt to allow us to pull it out of the bag, and that's exactly what we did. It was purely a matter of composure and keeping my head. The kart was brilliant all weekend, and when you're confident the pressure you feel around you disappears because you know you're going to do well. You don't really think about your rivals; at the end of the day it doesn't really matter who's in front of you, it's all about beating them.”
It is an ethos that has served Max well throughout the fiercely-competitive Junior Max campaign, and one that has left him as the only man genuinely capable of putting a stop to Andrews' championship charge at Three Sisters in six days' time. Though he admits it will be an uphill struggle given the power nature of the circuit, the last time Max raced at Wigan – in a club meeting earlier in the year – he triumphed from eleventh on the grid. Write him off at your peril.
“Wigan is going to be difficult for me,” he candidly acknowledged. “Kenny has such a good engine and he has been very strong with it throughout the championship. Being a power circuit will make him tough to beat there, but it all really depends on what the track is like and who is on the pace on the day. Let's just wait and see what happens.”
![(L-R) Gemma Stephenson, Max Hawkins and Tom Ingram on the BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Junior Max podium at Genk in 2007 [pic credit: TSR Productions]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/360369.jpg)
