Kent has another motor racing champion and it comes in the form of Jamie Bond who was crowned the 2018 Volkswagen Racing Cup champion.

The race ace from West Malling piloted a VW Golf with Rochester based Team Hard Racing, and the team have a rich pedigree in the race series, and that culminated with the title in 2018.

Jamie has been speaking to Kent Sports News about winning the title and hopefully being back on track in 2019.

He said: “It’s amazing, I and my family have worked so hard for this, and to finally achieve being the champion is a great feeling.

“From round one I knew we were going to be a big contender after coming so close to the title in 2017 as well.”

The 24-year-old was full of praise for Tony Gilham and the work that the team did to take him to the title throughout the 2018 season.

He added: “It was great the guys at Team Hard always put in 110% to every car they have which is why I raced with them for the past three seasons.”

Bond’s title victory went right down to the wire and that made it a nerve wracking time for Jamie, his friends and family.

He said: “It did yes the final round was possibly the worst racing weekend I’ve ever had with car issues in both races. With a gearbox failure in race 1 and a broken steering column in race 2, but it shows how much work we had put in before to still win after all the problems during the weekend.

“Oh yes 100% you just never know what’s going to happen when you turn up to a race weekend you just have to give 110% no matter what happens.

“For me winning races is the best feeling there is especially when I work so hard to be on the grid in the first place and it’s great to see my families faces with pure happiness.”

We asked Jamie if there was a race that stood out for him during his title winning campaign and there was definitely a highlight for him.

He added: “I will always remember my first race at Spa because well it’s Spa, also another race was race 1 at Croft winning buy nearly 8 seconds.”

Finally, we asked Jamie whether he will be back to defend his title in 2018 or whether he was targeting another series to race in.

He said: “As it stands at the minute I won’t be racing in 2019 due to funding which is very hard to take after becoming VW cup champion, I’m working very hard to find new sponsors to join me next year and get me back racing.

“If I can get back on the grid my aim is the BTCC or maybe TCR Europe but that comes with a large price tag. Then again I don’t like the sound of a new VW cup champion so I may return to try defend my title.”