A front-runner and race-winner in both Super 1 and FKS – the latter being the same series that first set none other than a certain Lewis Hamilton on the fast track to future Formula 1 superstardom, and one that now benefits from the prestigious official backing of both the sport’s youngest-ever world champion and its highly influential ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone – Ash headed to PF International in Lincolnshire bidding to significantly improve upon the lowly 28th position he had achieved in the one-off outing 12 months earlier in the Mini Max class. He would do so by 27 places.

“There’s only ever really one goal in an event like Kartmasters, and that’s to win,” he affirmed. “Going into the weekend I knew I was going to be there or thereabouts and amongst the quickest. I had a bit of a point to prove after last year, and because it was on TV too I needed to show I could race at the front. I’ve been doing that for most of the year to be fair, so I had no doubt I could cut it with the others.

“PF is one of my favourite circuits in the country; it’s fast and really technical, but I’d never finished higher than second there before. Practice went really well and the kart felt really good – by the end of it we had loads of grip and were able to put in consistently fast lap times.

“I was pleased at being the quickest in my group in qualifying, especially as beginning my last lap I had only been sixth. I was always expecting the second group to go faster, though – they were chasing my time whereas we’d had nothing to chase; we were just having to do the best we could without having a target to aim for as such.”

Nonetheless, second out of the 56 Junior Max competitors present – the indisputable crème de la crème of British competition at that level – was a strong start, and would leave Ash to begin his two heat races from the same spot. Getting collected as the innocent party in somebody else’s accident just moments into heat one, however, was not what the script had intended...

“That dropped me down to 23rd,” recollected the 15-year-old of the chain reaction pile-up, “but after that I just went for it. People were being cautious because of not wanting to ruin their wet tyres on the drying track surface, but when I found the right line I had loads and loads of grip, and it was really good fun fighting my way through the pack. I finished sixth, which I would say was a good recovery in the end; I think I just managed to find the best line before anybody else did to be honest.

“I dropped back to third at the start of heat two because we had set the kart up to come on later in the race, but after I did get into the lead on lap nine I was just able to pull away. Josh Webster was quicker than me at the end and could pull me back in again, but I never really felt under too much pressure.”

Admitting to being satisfied with his performances but frustrated by the outcome of the opening encounter – when, in evidence of his prodigious pace, he set a better fastest lap time than all five of the drivers who crossed the finish line ahead of him – the P1 Racing ace nevertheless knew that in the circumstances he had pulled off the perfect exercise in damage limitation, and was still very much in with a shout of the overall honours in beginning the pre-final fifth.

“The pre-final started out really well,” Ash reported. “I got into the lead early on, got into a good rhythm and was able to build up a gap, but then they red-flagged it for an accident five laps in. I had just been trying to be consistent, but that killed my progress.

“At the re-start I came across a backmarker right in the middle of the track at the first hairpin, which slowed me down and allowed the others to catch me up and get a run on me straightaway. I then got involved in a massive scrap from second place down to sixth, but I got pushed onto the grass on one lap and didn’t end up coming out of it very well. I was really annoyed with the result given how the race had started.”

Sixth at the close – again having lapped faster than all five drivers in front of him – the result only left the Maple Park teenager even more fired-up for the all-important grand final later in the day. Determined not only to win but also to demonstrate that he could be in front and stay in front, Ash would go on to produce a flawlessly intelligent and quite unrivalled performance.

“Going into the first corner at the start I saw the perfect gap ahead,” he recalled, “and after that I battled with Ollie Varney and Andy King for a little while. Andy had been particularly hard to get past and successfully shake off in the pre-final, so I knew beforehand that to have any chance of keeping the position I would have to overtake him and then hold him out wide to make a bit of a gap.

“Ollie and I worked together and both managed to get past Andy, and then on lap four I felt it was time for me to make a move for the lead. I got by into the first hairpin, and after that Ollie and Andy started battling which enabled me to stretch my legs a bit.

“It wasn’t easy after that, because I knew I had to keep concentrating hard; when you’re behind and have someone to chase, you can gauge the gap better, but when you are in front you don’t really know exactly how far behind your pursuers are. You just have to push as hard as you can and hope for the best.”

Ash’s ‘best’ was enough for a victorious margin of more than two seconds in the end, and whilst it may invariably be easier to be the hunter than the hunted, he failed to put so much as a foot wrong or a wheel out of place with the stakes at the highest they had been all weekend – and his reward now is to carry the coveted ‘GP’ plate for the remainder of the year. This trophy, you sense, will be a very special one indeed.

“I was so happy when I crossed the line,” enthused the George Eliot School pupil in conclusion. “It proved to everybody that I can win big races. It’s more important than winning in Super 1 or FKS, because in those championships by the time you get to the next round there might be a new winner and your success is forgotten. People remember this one all-year long.”