Evesham’s James Thorp took Italy by storm at the weekend with a second place finish in the season-opening Winter Cup at Lonato near Lake Garda. The Kings Worcester student races in the British and European Junior kart championships for the Strawberry Racing team using a Tonykart chassis and a Vortex engine.

After several days practice at the challenging circuit, 14-year-old James went into timed qualifying armed with one of the best developed engines in the on the track and firmly planted himself 4th on the grid. He converted this into a win and a 5th place in his two heat races, setting himself up for the semi-final where he came through to third.

The Lonato circuit is legendary in karting as the setting for legendary battles between future F1 stars such as Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, and Michael Schumacher has been seen testing there since his retirement from Grand Prix racing. A fast first few corners followed by four hairpins in succession makes for great racing and any driver to succeed there is well set up for anything the rest of the season can throw at him.

Once the final rolled around James was well and truly psyched up and by the end of the third lap he was laying third after a daring move on the last hairpin. Two laps later he was in second and straight away was challenging his team mate Jordan Chamberlain for the lead. Once past Jordan, James led for 14 laps but could never pull out enough of a gap between himself and the other drivers to be sure of his position.

After three laps of pressure from Danish driver Viktor Oberg, James succumbed and spent the rest of the race close to his rival’s bumper.

“Although I didn’t win I’m very happy with my weekend,” said James, “My team did an amazing job, especially my mechanic Mansell who made sure I was one of the fastest on the track. I think I’ve put out a warning to the competition for the European Championship.”