Jack Hawksworth's run of ill-fortune since making the step up to KF1 showed few signs of leaving him alone in his most recent outing at Shenington, as the young Bradford ace once again found himself on the pace but out of luck.
The former BRDC Stars of Tomorrow Super ICC front-runner has suffered with a variety of issues since stepping up a gear into the UK's premier karting class last month, but trading lap times with pace-setters Mark Litchfield and Jordon Lennox-Lamb throughout practice gave him considerable cause for optimism at the fast Oxfordshire circuit.
“Practice was up-and-down,” Jack recounted. “The conditions weren't very good, and you can't really get much productive done when it's like that. The track was greasy and we had a few problems in the first couple of sessions, but at the end of the day we were still as quick as anyone else out there once we had put our race motor on.
“On the Sunday I was hoping I would be pretty competitive and finally have a trouble-free race in K
F1. At the start of the day it was absolutely soaking; by the time the first heat came round it was beginning to dry out, but we were still all on wets.”
An impressive showing saw the 16-year-old come through the order from eighth on the grid into fourth at the chequered flag in heat one – displaying his potential by lapping consistently as the second-quickest man on the track – but those ever-present gremlins would return to haunt him in heat two, leaving him down in eighth position and sixth on the starting grid for the all-important final.
“I was still feeling confident because we had made a lot of changes to the chassis,” he asserted. “We had tested there prior to the weekend in the dry and been very quick; we knew our set-up was strong. I didn't feel I would be able to win the race, because Litchfield on pole was so quick, but I thought we could slot into the gap between him and the chasing pack.”
![Jack Hawksworth in action on his KF1 debut at PF International during the 2007-08 winter series [pic credit: Chris Walker/www.kartpix.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/397664.jpg)
