Jonathan endured a tough start to his bid
for European Championship glory at last weekend's (3/4 May) opening round of
the European Kart Championship at Angerville in France.
The PDB racing
star was hampered by ruptured tendons in his hand, sustained after a high-speed
accident during testing for the British Super 1 Championship (12/13
April).
In Timed Qualifying, Jonny could only record the 34th fastest
time - barely 8 tenths of a second off the pole time.
In his first heat,
Jonathan started from 21st place on the grid and clawed his way up to 16th at
the finish. In his next race, he went two places higher to finish 14th - and
was beginning to believe that his initial prediction of a top fifteen place, or
higher, was looking good.
Starting the first of Sunday's finals
alongside 5-time World Champion Davide Fore further reflected just how tough
the level of competition had been. And things weren't about to improve for
him.
"I started in 21st place - but my rear hubs started to move on the
axle and dropped to 27th. Before that happened I'd got up to 16th place and was
looking pretty good to go further up the order."
This meant that he
would start the second final from way down on the 14th row of the grid - just a
handful of places off the back.
One of those drivers desperate to move
forward from the rear was Frenchman Anthony Abbasse, who was clearly in no mood
to take prisoners. Jonathan explains: "I'd got my head down after the start and
was looking to start picking off places and move up the order, when Abbasse
came along. He didn't even try to over-take me - he just fired me across the
track!"
Rejoining in 28th place and with no chance of finishing in the
points, he reeled out the remaining laps using the track time as something of a
test session.
"It was a bit of an up and down weekend really. My wrist
is still fairly sore and that made steering through the trickier corners quite
painful and difficult. I think we'd got some reasonable results in the heats,
after starting from 29th place, I showed that I could go forward. But when it
came to the Finals, everything started to unravel."
Bloodied but
unbowed, Jonathan returns to domestic race action in two weeks time - at PFi in
Lincolnshire. He says: "Prior to Angerville, I went testing at PF and was bang
on the pace. I think we'll be alright there."
And what of his European
title chances? "Any chance of overall victory has gone, but I think I've got a
decent chance of making into the top ten. The next race is at Mariembourg
(Belgium) and I'm good round there. A good result will mean that I can really
push for the top ten, so we'll see."
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