The young Bradford star headed into the weekend chasing a strong result to boost his championship position, after running a challenging second in the grand final of the previous outing at Sarno in Italy only to be cruelly denied a chance to gun for glory when his chain snapped. Despite being an avowed fan of the fast and flowing nature of the popular Belgian circuit, however, and having been the architect of impressive drives there in the past, practice and qualifying would go far from according to plan.

“The competition is never easy at WSK level because all the top guys and top teams are there,” Jack acknowledged, “but we knew we were fast so we were optimistic of getting a podium. Practice didn’t go too well, though; we just weren’t quick enough. We were about four or five tenths off throughout, and couldn’t get the chassis to work around the track at all.

“Both my team-mate Paolo de Conto and I were on the absolute limit of what the chassis would do, and we just couldn’t do anything about it. We struggled throughout qualifying and the heats and weren’t able to shine or do the right times at all. As soon as it got warmer in the middle of the day we seemed to be out of it.

“We knew we had the potential to be a lot faster but we just couldn’t get the pace out of the kart in those conditions, and when you’ve been at the front all year that’s very frustrating – but you’ve just got to stay professional about it and try to make it happen. All credit must go to the team – the guys worked so hard it’s unbelievable. We were thinking about it all day and night and doing everything we could to try and turn it around.”
Indeed, there was much burning of midnight oil within the Energy Corse camp, with 23rd position in qualifying out of the 58 entries – seven tenths shy of the quickest – not where the Margutti Trophy winner is accustomed to being at all. The fact that he and de Conto set identical times to each other to the nearest thousandth of a second proved that both were getting the absolute maximum out of the kart that it was willing to give.

With no finish better than ninth place in his three heat races, things were looking bleak for the 18-year-old, as he lined up a lowly 19th on the starting grid for the pre-final. And then, with impeccable timing, the heavens opened – and with the rain invariably a great leveller in encouraging talent to come to the fore, all of a sudden it was game on again.

“It chucked it down not long before the start,” Jack recounted, “and in the one wet practice session we’d had up until then the kart had been perfect, so it was just a matter of getting into a good rhythm and going. I’ve always been good in the rain too, but the start was a bit crazy because Paolo directly in front of me on the grid made a bad start and I had to take to the grass to avoid him. That cost me a lot of positions and meant I was 25th at the end of the first lap.

“After that, though, the kart was just ballistic! We were overtaking four people a lap at some stages and came through to fifth. We just had so much more traction than everybody else – they were all struggling for grip whereas I had loads of it. We could do the lap times consistently too, and with two more laps we could probably have had third. We were happy with fifth, though, and I thought the inside line would be the better place to start for the second final, but it didn’t work out that way…”

Indeed, his pace was quite simply staggering, with the Cullingworth ace fighting his way into the top ten within just three laps, and by dint of lapping regularly half a second or more out of reach of anybody else on the track, he doggedly closed down a gap of some five seconds to fourth-placed Michael Ryall to just four hundredths of a second in the last six laps, drawing practically alongside at the chequered flag. Sauro Cesetti in third was just 1.7 seconds ahead at the close; had he had a couple more laps he would undoubtedly have passed both.

From fifth on the grid for the grand final, hopes were high for an even better showing, but with the rain having abated and a dry line having appeared, it was suddenly a different ball game altogether. With all 34 KZ2 drivers out on slick tyres on a treacherous track surface, just the tiniest error would prove costly indeed – as, to his intense frustration, Jack found out.

“I’m normally quite good in changeable conditions, so I was feeling confident,” he related. “I knew the track would be different to how it had been earlier in the day, but we had made changes to the set-up accordingly. We were on the wet side of the grid, so we dropped back to seventh at the start, but the kart was brilliant – just perfect throughout the race. We were coming through the field really fast and I passed Arnaud Kozlinski, Davide Forè and Sauro Cesetti and got into second.

“There was just one dry line all the way around the circuit, though, and as soon as you touched a wet patch you’d be off. The karts have so much power for those conditions, and people were going off everywhere – as soon as you went off the dry line it was game over. (Reigning world champion) Marco Ardigò was four or five seconds ahead so I’m not sure whether or not I could have caught him, but we would definitely have been second – and then I took my eye off the ball for just a millisecond. I just lost concentration for a split-second at the end of the long straight, and it punished me.

“I hit a wet patch at the hairpin and had to slow right down just to be able to get back onto the circuit again. In those conditions you need to be really smooth, keep calm and not push too hard, but after that I started pushing even harder to try and make up the ground I had lost and I hit another wet patch and then another. As soon as you make one mistake you then make more and more because you’re pushing harder and harder to catch back up again. I just lost my head basically. I felt like I had really let the team down to be honest.”

The red mist may have proven to be his undoing, but his determination never to say die underlined just how hungry he is to succeed, and the team readily accepted his apology, knowing that but for his minor lapse, Jack would unquestionably have been the hero of the weekend, winner or runner-up. As it is, ninth position has consolidated his fifth spot in the title standings and best-placed Energy driver heading next to Salbris in France for round three of four – and having been quick there on two previous appearances only to be struck by misfortune, nobody would begrudge the former Junior Max Vice-World Champion, Junior Max European Champion and British ICC Vice-Champion were he to make it third time lucky.

“We worked so hard to get up to the front and we achieved that,” he mused, reflecting on the Genk weekend as a whole. “We were just slicing through the pack in the rain – it was unbelievable. That proves the equipment is strong and that the team is doing a really good job. It was just a shame we couldn’t turn it into the result everyone deserved.

“I know Salbris well; it’s really fast, and there’s one chicane that seems to go on for ages, like four corners in one! Obviously it will be different in KZ1, but I’m sure we can come back strong there. The chassis and engine should work really well there, and I think it will be really fun to drive in KZ. There are still a lot of points up for grabs, and if we win just one second final we can go to the top of the championship table straightaway. We’re still very much in the game.”

The same can be said for the prestigious CIK-FIA European Championship, the second and last round of which takes place at Wackersdorf in Germany on June 27-28. Having been unceremoniously punted out of third place in the final of the curtain-raiser at La Conca earlier this year, Jack knows the pressure is on in what he describes as his biggest meeting of the season.

“I’m confident,” he stated, “but the problem is we’re on the back foot because of the bad result we had in the first round in Italy. We know we are the fastest team in KZ2 in the championship, so the aim has to be to win both finals and then just see what happens. If we have just a bit of luck on our side this time, I think we can do it.”