Harry King forced to fight back for Spa top five
Rising star Harry King was left to wonder what might have been at Spa after a qualifying incident hampered his chances of adding to his podium tally in the latest round of the Mobil 1 Porsche Supercup.
The BWT Lechner Racing driver headed for the Belgian circuit on the back of a career best second place finish in the previous event at Paul Ricard, but an unfortunate clash in qualifying would leave him in an unrepresentative eighth place on the grid.
Having set the fastest time of all through the first sector of what looked set to be a potential pole lap, Harry saw his session instead end in disappointing fashion when he was tagged by the car of Howard Blank as he passed the slower driver going into turn 13 - ruining his chance of improving his time.
Aware of the challenge that then lay ahead in the race, Harry came through a chaotic opening lap having managed to make up a spot into seventh behind team-mate Bastian Buus, and put pressure on the young Dane before sliding up the inside into Les Combes on lap three.
Once ahead of his team-mate, Harry set off in pursuit of countryman Lorcan Hanafin and halved the deficit within a lap as he closed onto the rear of the #9 car ahead.
Locked onto Hanafin’s rear, Harry made a move around the outside into Les Combes on lap seven only to be run wide by his rival, but he then got the switch back out of Malmedy to slide down the inside into the hairpin at Bruxelles to take fifth.
With a gap of more than three seconds to Marvin Klein, Harry showed storming pace through the final laps to chase down his rival but ran out of time to make a bid for fourth place.
The fifth place finish means Harry remains fourth in the points as the series heads to Zandvoort in the Netherlands next weekend for the penultimate meeting of the season.
"After mixed conditions in practice, I don’t think anyone really knew where they stood going into qualifying which set up quite an exciting session although for me, it would prove to be exciting for the wrong reasons," he said.
"On the first run we were sitting in P3 but then we didn’t get the chance to show what we could do on our second run on new tyres when an Am car disrupted my lap.
"To come from eighth on the grid to take fifth isn’t bad by any means on this grid, but with the pace we have shown in recent events, my expectations coming into the weekend were higher and I was hoping for more.
"Although there is some disappointment, we’ve been able to score solid points for the championship and have been able to retain our place in the standings, and my determination to now score big in the final two rounds has only increased."