For those who believe in nominative determinism, they’d view our latest Motorsport News readers’ Q&A guest as vindication. Even in his still-fledging career, Harry King is going a long way to live up to his surname.
From a family with no motorsport background beyond fandom, the British rising star sampled karting then Ginettas, where – by now resolved on a GT path – King took his first crown, in 2019 in GT4 Supercup.
But it was in 2020 that we really got our understanding of what King is about. Having freshly won Porsche GB’s Junior role, in his first Porsche Carrera Cup GB campaign he took a crushing title, winning 12 races out of 16 and only getting beaten in qualifying once – by 0.002 seconds.
Since then King has conquered new territories, becoming Carrera Cup Benelux champion, winning in Carrera Cup Germany, and making increasingly frequent endurance appearances. In January he got his first endurance victory, in the 6 Hours of Abu Dhabi.
Yet the Formula 1-supporting Porsche Supercup is his main focus. Last year he finished third in the standings, and he returns this year with the sole aim of the title.
King in addition is becoming as much a Bathurst specialist as he is Porsche specialist. Last October he took a victory hat-trick on his Mount Panorama and Carrera Cup Australia debut, and last month King continued his 100% Bathurst win record by helping the Manthey EMA effort to Pro-Am victory in the Bathurst 12 Hours.
He’s only recently turned 23, so no doubt plenty lays ahead. And, as he tells us, he wants to win all of the big endurance races. We’re grateful that he gave his time to answer the MN readers’ questions, just before he jetted off to Bahrain for his latest victory, in Carrera Cup Middle East…
“A GT car passed in the pit and I thought ‘I want that’”
Harry King
Question: Where did the motor racing bug come from?
David Addison
Via email
Harry King: “There’s no real origin for it really. I was involved with a family that enjoyed watching motorsport but nobody really was involved in it. The Formula 1 on a Sunday was always a bit of a religion in the family, but nobody really ever took it a step further. However from a young age things like Hot Wheels and Scalextric was always littered around the house and eventually my father bought a go kart for my brother who was two years older than me. He did not really enjoy it very much, we just took it to a local bit of flat Tarmac and put some cones up and I think the noise and the sound of it all scared him away. But actually for me it was quite the opposite, that’s what intrigued me.
“And once I hopped in the kart that patch of Tarmac suddenly became very small and we needed to get the kart out on a go-kart track. And my father was there, heading into the unknown with it all but he enjoyed seeing one of his boys have a similar interest to what he once had. So it came about from a bit of an obsession with cars and figuring out that I quite liked the sound and the feeling of speed.”
MN: So from that point of getting into the kart and having a liking for it, what happened then? I take it it started to ratchet up and become something a bit more serious?
“Yeah, that’s what it really stemmed from. And when you’re young, I was about nine-10 years old at this time, you’re always getting told what to do whether that be at home or at school, so getting a helmet on and not have anybody speaking to you and you’re in control of your own destiny when you’re on the track, I quite enjoyed that feeling. Of course, when you’re off the track you’re taught to always be respectful and mindful of others, but when you put the helmet on
