Euro Max Challenge - Round 3
A1 Speedworld, Austria
Click here for live action from the third round
of the Euro Max Challenge on Raceworld TV
30th July 2006
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Going into the third round of the championship and after some cruel luck in Italy where he couldn’t make the start of the final of which he was a clear favourite to win. Jack was 5th in the championship but it would be a weekend full of ups and downs, which would eventually take him to the top of the championship table.
Qualifying – Jack had struggled with some handling problems in practice and wasn’t as confident as he would have liked to have been going into qualifying. Nevertheless Jack managed to sneak in 44.59 which would be enough to give him 4th overall but a full 0.2 of a second behind the pole man Steel Guilliana of Australia. This insured that Jack would start from 2nd on the grid for all his heats.
Heat 1 – Starting on the outside of the front row and Jack got pushed out wide on the first corner and dropped back to 5th position. Jack quickly made his way back past championship rival Mats VandeBrand to reclaim 4th. Jack was back on to the leading three but the A1 circuit is known as a track where overtaking can be difficult and he struggled to make his way past. On lap 5 though Mats and Jack had a coming together and Jack dropped down to 12th and bent both his stub axles. From then on Jack struggled with the bent stubs and just managed to hang on for a poor 12th.
Heat 2 – Jack lined up alongside Steel Guilliana in this heat but dropped down to 3rd after the start. Jack was quickly back to 2nd and set off in search of the leader. Jack managed to get the gap down to just a couple of kart lengths by the finish but with neither driver giving an inch Jack never really got an opportunity to grab the lead apart from a quick look up the inside on the penultimate lap.
Heat 3 – It was an all British affair in the third heat as Jack lined up next to fellow British Driver David Sutton. Jack kept his position through the first corner and quickly made his way past David into the lead. David was quick to retaliate though as he relegated Jack back down to 2nd as Jack was now struggling with understear. Jack finished 2nd to round off what was a disappointing day as he would have to start the pre-final in 10th position.
Pre Final – Jack qualified 10th on the grid after a poor first heat the previous day. Jack got a very poor start though and dropped to 14th after the first corner. But Jack was no longer struggling with the understear that had plagued him all weekend, and he was quickly on the move through the pack. Jack started turning in the fast laps and was quickest on most of the laps in the race. Jacks persistence paid off and he eventually finished an encouraging 4th as well as taking the fastest lap of the race at a 44.22.
Final – Jack got a poor start off the line in the final and dropped down to 5th after the first corner. But he was in no mood to hang about as he dived down the inside of Daniel Shellnegger into the chicane. Now up to 4th and Jack was all over the back of French driver Alexander Bessac. After lap 4 Jack was past and chasing after the front 2. Jack was onto the back of Steel Guilliana by lap 7 and was past him on lap 9. That left Jack 9 laps to hunt down David Sutton who had opened up a gap of 1.8 seconds. Jack got the hammer down and started turning in quick lap after quick lap. By lap 14 the gap was down to just 1.2 seconds. But Jack didn’t have enough time to catch the leader eventually finishing 2nd 0.9 of a second behind fellow Britain David Sutton. Steel Guilliana finished 3rd with Alexander Bessac 4th, Daniel Shellnegger 5th and Japanese driver Kazuki Hiramine rounding out the top 6.
This result left Jack 1st in the championship with dropped scores being taken into account 8 points clear of his nearest rival going into the last round at the Belgium circuit Genk.
“I would like to thank Gary Chapman of Protrain Racing and Steve Ogden for supporting me all week and helping me achieve a very good kart setup and my dad for supporting me. I feel very confident going into the last round of the championship and I believe that there is every chance that I can win this championship but well just have to see because this is racing and anything can happen”
Jack Hawksworth
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