Harry’s off to a flyer in Carrera Cup Benelux
Dominant display from Holyport driver after inking deal to compete
Holyport's Harry King enjoyed the perfect start to his assault on the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux with a dominant display in the opening meeting of the campaign at Spa Francorchamps.
Having inked a deal to compete in the series alongside his commitments with BWT Lechner Racing in the Mobil 1 Porsche Supercup, Harry headed to the famous Belgian circuit seeking to replicate the front-running pace he had displayed in a one-off guest outing last year.
Harry laid down a marker in pre-event testing as he posted the fastest time in his Parker Revs Motorsport-run car and then stormed to pole position with a fine lap in qualifying that put him more than half a second clear of Glenn Van Parijs the runner up in the series last year.
Leading the field into La Source for the first time when the lights went out, Harry quickly established a gap over the field behind and was never troubled as he secured the first win of the campaign by a margin of more than 15 seconds.
Harry also picked up the fastest lap, which would be almost a second quicker than anyone else was able to manage.
With the second fastest times in qualifying being used to determine the grid for race two, Harry once again took his position at the head of field and when the lights went out, kept hold of the lead on the run to turn one.
Once again, he eased away from the field behind to establish a handy lead before an incident further down the field saw the race go behind the safety car.
By the time a number of stricken cars had been recovered from the gravel at turn 13, only a handful of minutes were left on the clock but Harry was still able to open up a buffer of almost four seconds by the time the chequered flag dropped. Once again setting the fastest lap - this time by more than a second Harry
concluded a perfect weekend on track that leaves him sitting on top of the championship standings.
"It’s great to be competing in a full season of Carrera Cup Benelux this season, and the opening round couldn’t really have gone better," he said.
"To score pole position and then take two wins with fastest lap is a great way to start the campaign, and it’s nice to be leading the championship at this early stage. It’s not realistic to think every weekend will go quite as well as this as there are some strong drivers on the grid, and I’m looking forward to some good on track battles as the season goes on and we head to some new circuits that I haven’t raced on before.
"It's also great to have been able to spend more time at the wheel of the 992spec car, and I'm confident that that is something that is going to be beneficial to both my Benelux and Mobil 1 Supercup programmes.
Harry’s next outing in the Benelux series will come at Zolder on June 10-12, but before then, he heads for the streets of Monaco later this month for round two of the Mobil 1 Supercup looking to add to the podium finish he scored in round one at Imola.