Qualifying issues continue to hamper King’s challenge for Formula Three title

Jordan King in action on the Pau street circuit. Picture: James Bearne Photography

Although making his debut around the notoriously unforgiving 2.7k track at the foot of the Pyrenees, the Stoneleigh driver is a self-confessed fan of street circuits having shone on his maiden appearance in Macau late last year.

He thus travelled to Pau in justifiably optimistic mood and subsequently qualified sixth, tenth and 12th among the 26-strong field.

A brace of safety car periods aside, the first encounter was a relatively subdued affair with little place-changing and King pushed his Carlin team-mate Jake Dennis right the way to the end as he flashed across the line in fifth.

The heavens opened and rendered the track surface treacherous ahead of race two the following morning, but the 20-year-old looked good for seventh position at the very least until he found himself blamelessly collected in somebody else’s accident just two laps from the chequered flag.

The sunshine reappeared in time for the third and final outing on Sunday afternoon and King completed his weekend’s work with a comparatively uneventful run to ninth.

That left King seventh in the drivers’ standings as the series enters a two-week break prior to the next stop on its calendar at the Hungaroring - where he vows to return all guns blazing and ready to claw back some lost ground.

“We entered this season with the aim of winning and to-date we have achieved only a couple of podiums, which isn’t enough,” said King.

“Qualifying is the major issue, leaving us on the back foot come the races and costing us a lot of points.

“It’s encouraging to be so near, but at the same time, frustrating to be so far.

“Something isn’t quite working and we need to figure out what it is.

“I’ve overtaken a lot of other drivers this year, which is great, but the bottom line is that we shouldn’t have had to - we are not starting in the right part of the grid - and the Hungaroring is another track where if you are further down the field, you are in for a long race.

“We have to make sure we are fully on top of our game by the time we get to Hungary, because at the moment, we’re making the job so much harder for ourselves than it needs to be.”