Totally Wrecked.

Jon's long distance adventure to Suzuka in Japan for the Asian Championship, left the young British ace decidedly underwhelmed: "The chassis was no good and the engine broke - it was totally wrecked", was his comment after flying back home mid-week.



Although he had experienced annoying problems with his weekend, the fact of the matter is that Jon had nevertheless been very quick. It made the casual observer wonder that if he could be so quick when he was suffering
from handling problems, what could he have achieved if everything had gone to plan?

"I was 6th in timed qualifying," Jon explained, "although it was partly wet at the time, and I do honestly believe that I could have been heading for pole position, but for the weather. The first heat was wet and we were out on slicks, and I won that race easily by around one and a half seconds". Conversely the second heat was starting to dry out, but Jon was out on wet tyres, where he brought his mount home into 6th place. "That left me on grid 3 for the Pre-final," Jon said, "and I was the fastest in the warm-up.
Unfortunately we had a few tyre issues in the race, and that combined with too small a sprocket, left me in 8th place by the finish".

So with grid 8 for the final, and with a new game plan to work from, Jon was still feeling very confident of a good result. "I made a good start and was up to 5th place by the first corner and happy to run with the lead group. The power from the engine though just got worse and worse, because the chassis was not good at all. I was still able to get up to 4th position and had caught (Marco) Ardigo (European Champion), but the engine made life difficult... It then blew up 'big time'!" was how Jon's race analysis brought his Japanese adventure to a premature ending.

And what about the reported press incident with Gary Catt that ultimately led to Jon being excluded from the results, even though he did not finish? "Now that move on Catt was very definitely on in my opinion," Jon explained. "At the time I was probably over-driving trying to overcome the chassis problems, but Catt had left a gap and I went for it. I would not have been doing my job right if I hadn't. When you go for a gap though, if the other driver wants to play it hard, there is not much you can do about it once you are committed. Catt just came across on me as though I was not there, and when that happens, there is nothing that the driver on the inside can do about it. The officials thought otherwise, but the truth is that the move was definitely 'on', and I would do the same again in similar circumstances".

"We are now due to go out to Ampfing after the weekend for a Bridgestone tyre test, where we will also be testing a new chassis, which should hopefully sort out the problems we are having with the current kart".