It took five rounds, but George King was finally able to shift a major monkey off his back with a first Ligier European Series victory of the season on what, at times, appeared to be a tough weekend at Spa-Francorchamps.
With tyre issues and monsoon conditions limiting the #60 Team Virage entry to a lowly — and unrepresentative — eighth on the grid, King and co-driver Bernardo Pinheiro knew they had their work cut out to make the podium in an increasingly-competitive prototype class, but were encouraged by the fact that the car appeared transformed ahead of the second hour-long encounter of the weekend.
Having qualified the #60 in torrential rain on Saturday, Pinheiro took the start and almost immediately made up four places, vaulting to fourth by the end of lap two, and then confidently despatching Virage team-mate and championship leader Mihnea Stefan before pitting for the mandatory driver change at half distance.
Once installed in the cockpit, King was pleased to find a better-handling car than he had had all weekend and, with the #60 having also gained a position during the pit-stop window, was able to put his foot down in pursuit of at least a podium finish. Unaware of his actual position in the order, the 22-year-old focused on not making any mistakes as he fought his way through traffic, eventually catching the leading Monza Garage machine and making short work of taking top spot with a move that began at Turn 9 and finished on the sweep through Pouhon.
King's work was far from completed, however, as both team-mate Stefan and LR Motorsport's Simone Riccitelli continued to hound the #60, the Romanian again benefiting from driving solo and having already acclimatised to track conditions. Capitalising on his prowess through the slower traffic, King managed to extend his advantage and, with Stefan and Riccitelli then engaging in battle for second place, pulled away to the tune of six seconds — a margin he maintained to the chequered flag to claim that long-awaited win.
"Towards the end, the fuel warning popped up again and, whilst that is normal, after what happened at Aragón, when the car stopped in sight of victory, I wasn’t taking any chances and started fuel saving. Fortunately, I had enough of a lead to be able to do so," King smiled after the initial celebrations had died down.
"As soon as I jumped into the car at the driver change, I immediately noticed the difference in how it was performing — it felt great again! We'd had to use our 'joker' tyres for this race as we didn’t want to risk a repeat of the tyre issues from earlier in the weekend, and it was good to have some fresh rubber on the right-hand side of the car, which does a lot of work during the race
"I didn’t know what position I had come out in — and didn’t hear it over the radio — so I just kept my head down and eyes forward. Even after getting into the lead, though, it was a challenge to try and drop Minhea and Riccitelli but, after some moves through traffic, everything settled down and I was over the moon to cross the line in P1. I was shouting over the radio with the team — it was an awesome moment — and the champagne shower felt even better from the top step!"
The breakthrough win came hours after Pinheiro had guided the #60 Ligier through to fourth place in the opening race of the weekend. King started the race, frustrated with his qualifying performance which, as well as being interrupted by the inevitable Ardennes rain, saw the Briton fighting constant tyre woes.
"We all pushed hard to try and set the best time as soon as possible, but my tyres felt like they never got up to temperature, meaning every other car had much more significant grip," he noted. "I would be locking my front right wheel all the time and could not get a competitive time out of the car no matter how hard I tried — or how many different techniques I used — to try and make it comply. After the session, we found that the front right pressure had ballooned due to some moisture getting into the tyre, which caused the lock-ups as the contact patch became smaller."
Finding the #60 developing the same issue from the start of the race — making the car difficult to steer as it gained increasingly severe understeer — King was powerless to either defend or attack.
"We were super slow and it made for a painful first half of the race knowing that I was off the pace but not down to my abilities," he lamented. "When we pitted for the driver changed, the team decided to change the tyres to the brand new set we had saved from qualifying when Bernardo had to use full wets. While this allowed us to solve the tyre problem, it still wasn't ideal as had wanted to save them for race two like everyone else."
It proved to be a good call from the team, as Bernardo revelled in the change to the handling and moved all the way up to fourth place, salvaging good points and finishing ahead of the other teams fighting for P2 in the championship.
"The weekend was certainly up and down," King concluded, "but there was still a big celebration as Mihnea was officially confirmed as champion with a round still to run. Our first win — which we so deserved after our horrid luck this season — also felt like we'd achieved something major, so thank you to all our sponsors and even bigger thanks to the team, who didn’t stop even during the very late nights they had to work this weekend. Now let's go secure a championship 1-2!"
The sixth and final round of the Ligier European Series takes place at Portimao in Portugal over the weekend of 19-22 October.
