A superb start to his European season, saw Jon take a podium finish in the Winter Cup at Garda in Italy at the weekend.

The weekend was rather mixed weather wise, with Jon describing big problems on the tyre front. "Yeah, the Vega's were a lot quicker than my Bridgestone's in the wet conditions, and there was just nothing that we could do about it. The fact it was wet for most of the weekend meant it did not help us at all".

Having said that it did not stop Jon taking his Birel kart into the top  finishing positions on both Saturday and Sunday. "I finished in 5th place in heat 1," he said, "although heat two was a bit more of a mix as we kept moving from wet to dry conditions as the race developed. I was able to lead the opening laps, but then it just teemed it down, and I mean really heavy rain, so I slipped back to 9th place. I was the 2nd placed Bridgestone runner though, so that just about said it all".

Lining up on grid 7 for the Pre0-inal, with the track just about dry, it meant the conditions were ideal for Jon to make his mark for the first time. "We started the race on wet tyres, but on a drying track. I was leading by lap 3 and I left (Gary) Catt behind. I was later caught by Kozlinski, but he was found to be underweight, which meant I won the race, and that gave me pole position for the main final".

Sadly a change of sprocket for the final resulted in Jon lacking the punch
he needed out of the corners. "We did not have the right sprocket," he explained after the race, "so I was struggling for speed. I dropped back to 5th place in the early laps, realising that I was lacking bottom end power trying to accelerate out of the corners. I was still able to take the fight to the leaders though and ended up in 3rd place behind my Birel team-mate (Sauro) Cesetti and Bianchi. It was a good result all things considered and everybody was happy, especially as we enjoyed a Birel 1-3 finish".

The Margutti Cup at Parma in Italy is the next stop on Jon's list, scheduled for 12 March 2006, a race that he is approaching with a lot of confidence.