George King returned to the Ligier European Series podium at the weekend, but third place in race two at Motorland Aragon only slightly numbed the pain of seeing a first win of the season slip away.

After a brace of second-place finishes in round three at Paul Ricard rekindled his championship ambitions, the 22-year-old Briton headed to Spain in good heart, despite knowing that it would take more work to remain a frontrunner at a circuit he had never visited before.

That extra effort paid off almost immediately, with King posting the fastest time in both Friday practice sessions, pushing the #60 Team Virage Ligier JS P4 to the front of the field, and ending the second outing with a best time of 2min 02.677secs as he continued to improve throughout. It was a similar story for the #60 team in qualifying, with co-driver Bernardo Pinheiro claiming pole position for race one and King only narrowly missing out on completing a clean sweep by completing the front row of the grid for race two.

"We arrived a couple days early to try and learn as much as possible from the other drivers and my coach James Winslow," King confirmed. "I was trying to get any edge I could, learning track condition and the little tricks other drivers where finding ahead of the weekend and something clearly worked as I finished P1 in both practice sessions. Bernardo then got pole in Quali 1 and I only missed top spot by two-tenths in the second session after deciding to not push for pole and save tyres for the race because it was so hot."

With the mercury touching 40° throughout the weekend, tyres were likely to be a deciding factor in the two race but, ultimately it was other technical issues that decided the outcome of King's weekend.

Pinheiro produced an amazing first stint in the opening race, pulling out a 26-second gap from pole position before handing over to King. Although the conditions changed and it started to rain during the pit-stop, the Briton decided that it was not enough to warrant a change to full wet tyres, although the track was clearly very slippery when he rejoined with the #60 Ligier JS P4 still on slicks. Having worked out the best line for the conditions, King proceeded to extend an advantage over his pursuers either side of an untimely safety car period and looked on course for a first victory of the season before fate and gremlins intervened.

"My out-lap was all about trying to find the grip and where I could and couldn’t place the car," the youngster explained. "On average, I was able to lap a second faster in awkward conditions than the cars behind me, which I was obviously very happy about. Even when the safety car came out and bunched us all up again, I could take advantage of having a slower car behind me in the queue, flooring it out of Turn 16 while no-one could overtake the JS 2R until the start-finish line. That meant I had a couple of second gap before T1 and, after a few laps, I was seven seconds clear and cruising to our first victory…

"Unfortunately, a few laps from the end, I began getting fuel pressure warnings on the dash and the car was lapsing into 'limp mode', which drops it down to 60kph, causing me to slow in some corners even though I was flat on the throttle. On the very last lap, just three corners from the chequered flag, the car stopped giving me any drive at all. My foot was flat to the floor, but there was nothing…

"After the race, the team determined that a fuel pressure issue had caused us to DNF just three corners from that elusive first win. I was absolutely heartbroken, as were Bernardo and the team, to have had a comfortable success snatched away from us in such a cruel way. I just had to go and sit on my own for an hour to collect myself…"

Having overcome his disappointment, King was fully focused on putting things right in race two. Starting from P2, he made an equal start with polesitter, and Virage team-mate, Mihnea Stefan, out-braking the Romanian around the outside of turn one and claiming the inside line for turn two to secure the lead. Once ahead, the Briton again gapped the field by seven seconds over the opening laps, posting a new lap record — his second of the season — in the process.

Once again, however, the safety car appeared, undoing King's hard work, but the youngster had already begun to struggle with a familiar issue, as a braking problem from earlier in the season returned, making it incredibly hard for the driver to be efficient while slowing the car.

"After the safety car restart, the issue got worse and worse, and I was almost two seconds a lap slower than I had been when the brakes were working fine," King lamented. "I was overtaken by my team-mate, but stuck with him knowing that we would be back in front after the pit stops due to the additional time penalties he had to take due to racing as a single silver category driver. I was also trying to save the tyres for Bernardo’s stint, so I was surprised how close we were when I handed the car over."

Unfortunately for the #60 crew, Pinheiro continued to struggle with the braking issue and, despite defending P2 with his life, the Portuguese youngster could do nothing to prevent being overtaken in a heavy braking zone. He remained third on the road to the chequered flag, however, giving the #60 its fifth podium finish in seven races — the only misses the result of DNFs — and keeping its drivers in the championship fight.

"Finishing P3, with the issue we had, I think was an amazing result," King concluded, having salvaged something from a weekend that had promised so much more. "Bernardo drove an amazing stint and performed brilliantly all weekend. The team were putting in long days in scorching heat, so a massive thank you goes to them as well. It was just unfortunate that mechanical issues stopped us from getting our maiden win, but we'll turn the page on this weekend and focus fully on the next one. It’s not over yet!"

Round five of the Ligier European Series takes place at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium over the weekend of 23-24 September, but King and Team Virage will be back in action before that, as the Ultimate Cup Series resumes after a lengthy hiatus with the 600km of Estoril over 9-10 September.