Jack Sales is more than satisfied with his start to the 2015 Caterham Tracksport season after the opening two rounds of the championship.

Sales moved to up to the Tracksport series for 2015 having won his class in 2014 and he is so far having fun and enjoying his time.

Speaking to Kent Sports News, he said: “I’m enjoying the move up to Tracksport; the competition is very tough this year and the racing is incredibly close!”

Jack got off to a good start at the opening round of the season and came close to taking a victory in those opening races at Snetterton.

He added: “I was reasonably pleased with my Snetterton results; it’s the first time I’ve finished on the podium at the opening round of the championship since starting car racing (I’m normally slow off the mark), so it was great to get some good points on the board right from the get-go.

“I was annoyed at the time, especially after the second race as myself and the winner were side by side over the line, and we both thought I had got it at the time, but the transponders told a different story.

“It’s not something to dwell on, and after a couple of hours, I was looking at the bigger picture and took the positives from the weekend. In any case, the racing was incredible, watching my onboard back from race 2, I counted 34 legitimate lead changes – incredible.”

Donington Park was next up for Sales and this round didn’t quite go as planned for the young racer but it is an experience he can build on.

“Donington was a bit of a rollercoaster weekend. I was fastest in every session that my transponder worked on the Friday test day, wet or dry. I put my race tyres (as opposed to my practice tyres) on for qualifying and something was amiss as I couldn’t get within a second of my Friday lap times, so I qualified down in 11th. I managed to get up to third place in race one, by which time the two leaders had escaped and there was quite a battle going on for third place.

“I was swapping positions between third, fourth and fifth, and I was in fifth when third and fourth had a coming together right in front of me, and I had nowhere to go. Somehow my clutch pedal was stuck down, and could not be fixed at the side of the track, so I had to retire from the race.”

With damage to the car, it meant that Sales was slightly up against the clock to get ready for race two although the damage wasn’t too bad.

He added: “It didn’t actually take too long to fix the car (at least to get it to the point where it could be used in the 2nd race) there was just the clutch to fix, my right hand lower wishbone and some bodywork to patch up.

“Not a large repair bill thankfully (although subsequent inspection has found that the chassis may be a little bent, but hopefully it’s just a case of adjusting the suspension geometry to suit).
“It was always going to be tough coming from 24th on the grid in such a high quality field! I ended up finishing fifth (setting the fastest lap along the way), so the end result was not so bad. I had got up as high as third, but a combination of using a lot of tyre coming through, a slightly bent car, missing a gear and a couple of other mistakes from me scuppered my chances of a podium finish.

Next up for Jack it is a trip to Zandvoort and it is a track that he is looking forward to competing on when the championship heads there in mid-June.

He said: “Surprisingly I’m only as far down as fifth, despite a non-score. I’m way behind the leaders on points though, and I’ll have to play the long game this year. You drop your 2 worst scores (i.e. you do not count your 2 worst races towards your point’s total) at the end of the year, so hopefully I don’t have any more bad race meetings.

“I can’t wait for Zandvoort, it looks like a very cool place; very fast track, right next to the beach (hopefully we get some hot weather), and only 30km from Amsterdam, so we will be tourists for part of the trip.”

Images courtesy of John Hutchinson