Welsh karting hot-shot James Singleton had to work hard indeed for his latest podium finish in the fiercely-disputed Rotax Cup at Three Sisters near Wigan – but he firmly believes the experience will stand him in good stead for the remainder of his 2009 national campaign.

Returning to the fast and bumpy Three Sisters circuit with a point to prove following a disappointing outing there 12 months earlier, James was eager to shine having always been quick around the track but conversely having rarely come away with the kind of result to reflect his pace. That unenviable statistic would soon change.

“Last year we didn’t finish anywhere near the top because I binned it at the start,” he sheepishly confessed. “In testing this time around we were really fast, though I had to run myself on the Friday because my dad couldn’t be there to be my mechanic like he usually is, so that was a first! I’d helped out before but I’d never really done it all on my own, and I’d certainly never changed an engine myself! It was quite hard and a few things fell off to begin with, but it went pretty well in the end!”

Joking apart, a strong showing in qualifying saw James seal his place as one of only three competitors in the hotly-contested Mini Max class to progress onto the Superpole session, where with just one flying lap available to each of the trio, the stakes were raised even higher still.

“There wasn’t really too much pressure,” he contended, “because my dad told me ‘if you don’t think it’s going to be a good enough lap for pole, just slow right down to make sure you get third and stay on the better side of the grid’. The first few corners worked out quite well, though, and after that I just got my head down and got on with it really.”

Good enough for pole it certainly was, and James went on from there to fairly dominate his opening heat race before gaining the upper hand over Jordan Houghton for the same outcome in heat two, and securing pole position for the all-important final with third place in heat three, albeit admitting to not having progressed as well as some of his rivals in terms of set-up as the track conditions changed.

Indeed, the variable weather was something of a feature of race day, and it would prove to be James’ greatest nemesis, causing confusion regarding just what kind of set-up to run. Rain in the build-up to the big race convinced the 13-year-old and his Coles Racing team to plump for a wet weather setting, but with the track drying out rapidly in the minutes leading up to the start, he soon knew they had got it wrong – and, worse still, that there was precious little they could do about it.

“It was raining then stopping then raining then stopping,” recounted the Dwygyfylchi speed demon. “We changed the tyre pressures and put on a wet set-up because it looked like it was going to be a wet race, but it turned out to be dry! That was pretty nerve-wracking, because when we got down to the grid we realised we had made the wrong choice – everyone else was on slick tyres and a dry set-up. We managed to change the tyres but that was it, and the result was that the kart was pretty hard to drive.

“I began from pole, but my engine conked out at the start which cost me a good four places. I managed to get some of them back, but because of the set-up we had on my steering felt really heavy; on the exit of corners it just felt like it was bogging down, and everyone else was able to pull out three kart-lengths on me. Danny Sweeney came past, and though I tried to hold onto him he was just too fast. After that I started duelling with Ethan Patterson and just managed to hang onto second – we were swapping places all the time, and I had to defend pretty heavily on the last lap...”

Forced to battle against sheer bad luck in a tricky situation, James nonetheless refused to be beaten and drove superbly to retain second place. Though understandably frustrated to have missed out on the very top laurels, he had still once again ably demonstrated that he is a force to be reckoned with in 2009, as the Ysgol Aberconwy pupil refocuses his attentions now on following in Hamilton’s wheeltracks with his challenge for British title glory.

“I was a bit gutted to be honest,” he concluded, “because the winner’s trophy was huge! I think if we’d had the right set-up on we could have won it. It was a learning experience, though, and we know how quickly that track dries now. We found out quite a bit throughout the weekend, which will help when we go back there.

“Looking ahead, I’m feeling confident. Hopefully Larkhall and Buckmore Park were our bad rounds out of the window, and we can just get on with the championship again now.”