Harry King will look to fight back at Silverstone when the Porsche Carrera Cup GB heads for the ‘Home of British Motorsport’ after a luckless weekend on track as his domestic campaign resumed at Croft.
The current Porsche GB Junior driver – and defending series champion – headed for the North Yorkshire circuit on the back of a busy period concluding his campaign in the Mobil 1 Porsche Supercup, where he ended the season with on a high at Monza with his best result of the year.
With Croft not part of the calendar last year, Friday testing provided Harry with a chance to get reacquainted with a circuit where he had produced a dominant performance en-route to his 2019 Ginetta GT4 Supercup title.
Having gone second quickest in testing, Harry headed into qualifying in confident mood but an uncharacteristic error saw him run off track on his second run in the session and resulted in him lining up in fourth place on the grid for race one.
Holding station at the start, Harry made a move for third on Will Martin at Tower only to be run wide on the exit of the corner, but then pounced at Sunny In to dive down the inside into the podium positions.
Martin tried to fight back going into the complex and tagged the rear of Harry’s Team Parker Racing-run car, and then hit the left rear going into the hairpin – forcing Harry wide and briefly dropping him back to fifth.
Although he reclaimed fourth from Kiern Jewiss immediately, Harry was then forced to pit during a safety car period with a left rear puncture caused by the earlier contact, which dropped him to the back of the field. Harry would fight his way back up to eighth overall by the end of the race, although a five second penalty for exceeding track limits left him classified in twelfth.
Starting race two from the same position, Harry enjoyed a storming opening lap to rocket up into the top six, and then took fifth when leader Lorcan Hanafin was forced to retire after clipping a tyre stack on lap three.
Unfortunately for Harry, Martin would then dislodge a separate tyre stack later on the same lap which Harry was powerless to avoid, with the resultant contact damaging the radiator on his car and forcing him into the pits to retire.
“This turned out to be a bit of a weekend to forget, and is one that we just need to put behind us,” he said. “I hold my hands up to an error in qualifying, but we knew the pace was there for the races and I was confident that we would be in the fight for victory.
“Sadly, luck wasn’t on my side and after contact from another driver forced me out of the lead battle in race one, there was nothing I could do when the same driver then clipped the tyre stack in race two and it rolled into my path.
“The fact we go straight to Silverstone next weekend is good as it means we can get right back on track, and as a young driver who is supported by the BRDC through the Superstars programme, it is always special to get the chance to race at the ‘Home of British Motorsport’.
“The level of competition in the series is really high this season and we have ground to make up in the standings, but I’m going there feeling confident that we can fight back. We had a great weekend at Silverstone last season with a double win, and the reverse grid success is one that I think a lot of people still talk about. Hopefully we can enjoy similar results this time around.”
Source. Harry King/Photo. Porsche
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