BASINGSTOKE Superkart driver Ben Willshire will head to Cadwell Park next weekend for the biggest Karting event of the year – the British Kart GP full of confidence.

This after he collected two top-five finishes in the last two rounds of the British Championships at Darley Moor, which leaves him fourth in the standings.

At the latest meeting, RG Racing’s Willshire, pictured, competing in the 125 Open category, was straight on the pace in qualifying, remaining second for most of the session behind joint championship leader Danny Edwards, until being pipped by local driver Danny Butler to put him down to third.

So, in race one, Edwards, Butler and Willshire lined up on row one with Ian Reid and joint championship leader, Lee Morgan, starting on row two.

When the flag was dropped, Willshire’s kart struggled to get off the line with an attempt at starting in second gear.

The Basingstoke driver slipped down to sixth at the end of lap one, but it was soon apparent Willshire had the pace to fight back and did so with a convincing out-braking manoeuvre at turn two on Irishman, Ian Gilpin.

Later that lap Willshire got a clean exit from the first gear hairpin and tucked into the slipstream of Lee Morgan down the 120mph back straight.

The two drivers were side by side into the last turn but Willshire took the inside line under braking and was back into a comfortable fourth spot.

This finish meant Willshire started race two on the second row and, learning from his race one, he made an excellent getaway from the line, propelling himself into third spot and chasing Butler and Edwards to turn two.

As the pack rounded lap one, Ian Reid, made a late but clean overtaking move on Willshire to regain third place.

This caused the Basingstoke driver to be slightly slower out of the hairpin and onto the straight and allowed Morgan to capitalise on Willshire’s lost momentum.

The local driver continued to keep up with the pace of the leaders in an exciting race, with the top five separated by six seconds.

Edwards took the win over Morgan by 0.006 seconds with Reid 2.7 seconds behind in third. Butler and Willshire had a close dice on the last two laps, with Willshire attempting to pass him on the final turn of the final lap but it was not to be.

He had to settle for fifth, crossing the line 0.3 seconds behind Butler.