King is in top of the world Down Under

Having encountered ill-fortune in the Teretonga curtain-raiser, King bounced back with a well-judged podium finish second time out at Timaru.

And he built on that success in qualifying by storming his way to top spot on the starting grid.

“It was a really tough session,” he said.

“Midway through, I was fastest, but then other drivers went quicker as we concentrated more on our race strategy, and I had to dig really deep.

“The times were incredibly close, but fortunately, I managed to find the last tenth of a second that I needed to secure pole.”

The Princethorpe College student made the most of his front-row position with an excellent getaway - 0-60mph in 2.9 seconds – and then began to pull out a sizeable gap, setting a new fastest lap in the process.

After pulling out a three-second advantage over his nearest rival, King was able to ease to the chequered flag, finishing more than two seconds clear of fellow BDRC Rising Star Josh Hill (ETEC Motorsport) in second.

“It felt so good to be quick enough to be in a position to just relax and know that I still had more time in my pocket had I needed it,” he said.

“Crossing the line to win was absolutely mega and my team at M2 Competition were so happy.”

King’s pace over the 15-lap showdown was impressive and he consolidated it with a brace of similarly eye-catching efforts that yielded fourth spot from sixth on the reverse-grid in race two, and a competitive third in race three, the 20-lap Denny Hulme Memorial Trophy in homage to the 1967 F1 world champion.

That combination of results saw the 17-year-old conclude the weekend as the Toyota Racing Series’ top points scorer and vault up to sixth place in the championship points table for good measure.

“I had a terrible start in race two that dropped me down to ninth initially,” he said. “But then I fought back and overtook one driver after another as I closed the gap on the leaders.

“That was so much fun. I passed five cars in total over the 15 laps to finish fourth and our speed was really good all the way through.”

A change in wind direction before race three altered the track conditions, however, and King was unable to replicate the pace he had shown in the opening two races.

“Our set-up that had been so fast in the first two races didn’t quite work with the lower downforce, which meant that although I was lapping at the same pace as the top two, I wasn’t able to catch them.

“It would have been nice to come away with a second win from the weekend, but in the circumstances, we were happy enough with third place.”