Singapore, 9 November 2010 – It was a tough weekend in hot and humid Thailand for kart racers at Round 4 of the Asian Open Karting Championship (AKOC). Having had a late-season change of team management, James Pull, the 11-year-old Singapore-based cadet, finished fourth for this round and is now standing in overall second for the Mini ROK category with just one more round to go.
Having to spend some time familiarising himself with the kart set-up and the track, Pull qualified in ninth place and completed the three rounds of heats in sixth, seventh and sixth positions respectively. His combined result put him in sixth position for the pre-final. During the pre-final, Pull clocked his fastest lap of the weekend at 48.6 seconds – a time that would have put him in second place for qualifying.
Finishing seventh in the pre-final, Pull started the final in seventh but was swiftly up to third within the first two laps. Unfortunately, he got entangled with traffic and ran wide, losing two places. He managed to move back to fourth quickly, where he spent the last eight laps right behind a Thai driver in third who had just enough pace to keep him off, despite repeated attempts from Pull to get past.
“I had a lot to adjust to this weekend: a new team, new mechanics, new kart set-up and new track conditions. It was tough on everyone to make things work quickly and efficiently within such a short period of time and to finish fourth is a fantastic result. A special thank you must go to John King and his team for working so incredibly hard to get me onto the grid in Thailand,” said Pull.
Before the AKOC finale in Macau in December, Pull will be participating in the final round of the Singapore Karting Championship this weekend at Kartright Speedway.
This year, Pull has competed in the full season of AKOC and Yamaha SL Cup – where he finished second overall – as well as made guest appearances at the Rotax Max Challenge (RMC) Malaysia Championship. He also headed to Italy at the end of summer for as part of his development programme and gained tremendous exposure through participation at a World Series Karting (WSK) Master Series race.