FANTASTIC FOURTH
Impressive display moves talented young rider up the rankings
Renfrew’s Jack Hart finished a fantastic fourth in the final round of the British Superbike Motostar Moto3 Standard Championship.
An impressive display moved him up to 11th in the final championship standings in his rookie year after the latest round took place at the iconic Brands Hatch.
The last couple of races had been difficult for the 14-year-old following a couple of big crashes.
However, after some excellent coaching in Spain, Hart was confident he could be challenging for top- 10 finishes in both the Saturday and Sunday races.
For the early qualifying session, Hart set out to try for more than just one fast lap.
This was to ensure that he had good race pace as he was confident he could make up places by the time the race came around.
Despite that, he still set a good time and qualified in 14th position for the first race, just 1.5 seconds from sixth spot.
In race one, Hart got off to a good start and made up a couple of positions, however, he had to then battle another rider to get into 10th spot.
By the time he managed to finally overtake his rival the group in front had pulled a gap. He then settled into a race-long battle where he managed to stay in front and secure an excellent 10th position.
Hart’s fastest lap time also ensured he moved up a place on the grid for the Sunday race.
Race two was in very wet conditions and following a good morning warm-up, Hart was feeling confident and determined to get off to a good start.
But, disaster struck on the warm-up lap when he had a problem with his visor misting and this meant that at the start of the race he had to guess his way around and try and keep out of the way – not ideal at 120mph.
Following a couple of laps, his visor started to clear and he could concentrate on working his way back up the back.
Lap after lap, Hart made up positions, setting the fifth fastest lap of the race to get all the way from 17th to fifth position with three laps to go.
But he could see fourth position just in front of him and managed to overtake on the last lap to secure the fourth spot.
Hart told Express Sport: “It was a nightmare and a bit scary in the first few laps with my visor misted up but I tried to stay calm and this helped me be smooth which you need to be in the wet so I was able to then make up a lot of positions.
“I’m delighted to finish the season with fourth position and to have secured 11th overall in the championship in my first year especially as I am one of the youngest riders.”
Hart now has a few weeks of training before the last round of the British Talent Cup which is in Valencia running along with the last MotoGP race of the season on November 17 and 18.