King’s failure to build on fourth place is the pits

King picked up a brace of fourths in qualifying, lapping the best part of a second faster than his Manor Competition team-mates.

However, a lack of outright speed left the Stoneleigh-based driver in no-man’s land for the bulk of the race.

“I wasn’t quite quick enough to stay with the top three,” said King. “The best I could hope for was fourth, to be honest, unless they began fighting, which might have allowed me to close up. I was on the limit and racing hard every lap simply to keep them in view. We just needed that little bit more of an edge.”

Looking to build on his second-best result of the campaign, King began to creep slightly before the lights went out in race two, which ultimately led to him scuppering his chances of success with a rookie error.

“Alex Lynn directly ahead of me jumped the start and I half went, too, but managed to stop,” he explained.

“When I did get going properly, I had a mega start and moved up to third, and then Lynn came into the pits at the end of lap one to serve a drive-through penalty, which put me second.

“Next time around, though, they were still holding the jump-start board out and, because I had moved early as well, I assumed it was for me.

“We don’t have team radios to be able to check, and I thought I couldn’t risk not coming in, so I did, which dropped me to the rear of the field.

“After the race, I was told the board had been kept out by mistake.

“It was my fault for not looking at it properly, and I just had to put it down to experience.”