How a Porsche King became 2020's breakout star

It takes a pretty special performance for someone other than a British Touring Car Championship racer to be voted as Autosport's National Driver of the Year. In the past decade, only two non-BTCC drivers have scooped the award - and, of them, one was Lando Norris after his Euro F3 title-winning season. Never has a driver competing in one of the BTCC's support series landed the prize. Therefore, for Porsche Carrera Cup GB star Harry King to win shows how special his season was.

There have been some dominant performances in the Carrera Cup GB in recent years - Dan Cammish (twice) and Dan Harper completely trounced the opposition during their title-winning campaigns. But King took that domination to a whole new level.

While Cammish's and Harper's best pole percentages were 81% and 75%, King's was 88%, and he was only 0.002 seconds away from that figure being 100%. He also ranks highly in win percentages, too - 75%, the same as Cammish's best, while Harper's was 50%. But even more impressive than that was the fact that King never finished a race outside the top two, despite the second race of a weekend featuring a partially reversed grid and the Carrera Cup not exactly renowned for overtaking being easy.

King had shown flashes of brilliance in his career before last season's apparent steamrollering of the Carrera Cup. He was a winner in his rookie Ginetta Junior campaign in 2016 with the Elite Motorsport squad, which back then was far from being an established frontrunner.

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He claimed the Ginetta GT4 Supercup title in 2019, and arguably could have won that more comfortably without a driveshaft issue at Thruxton and a few jumped-start penalties. But last year was the first time King had delivered that blistering speed at every single round, starting with the opening event at Donington Park.

Often, it takes drivers a little bit of time to get to grips with the Porsche machine and master how to extract the highest levels of performance from it. There was no such trouble for King. Pole by 0.255s, over three tenths faster than 2014 champion and team-mate Josh Webster, proved that.

"I knew how competitive Carrera Cup is, and I knew how strong Josh my team-mate was, and throughout winter testing we were on par with him," says 20-year-old King. "It was a really good dynamic we had in the team, but I certainly didn't expect to pole it and neither did I think I would be winning at the first race."

King missed out on victory in the opener after striking a Recticel tyre stack at the chicane, which hobbled his car and left him second (his worst finish of the season), but there was no such trouble in race two, as he stormed from third on the grid to win.

"I had expectations of maybe being in the top three - I would've walked away from a top-three weekend and been pretty happy with it - but to finish second in the first race and be pretty frustrated with it, I found myself taking a step back and thinking, 'Second's fine, Harry!'" King continues. "And then obviously in race two, we went and won it.

"But, after that weekend, my expectations for the championship completely changed. Instead of being a top-three, it was, 'Right, OK, we could be in for a championship here and we've got to drive it like a championship-winning driver should do and be smart
with it.' And we did just that and it obviously worked out."

"Without those sorts of situations, you never learn. I wouldn't have liked them to happen, but they have probably made me a better person and a better driver" Harry King

Such an impressive opening round certainly caught the attention of 1992 British Touring Car champion Tim Harvey, who, as a two-time Carrera Cup title winner, knows a thing or two about Porsches.

"It was impressive - normally it takes people a little bit of time to learn the nuances of driving these cars," he says. "He just jumped in and was quick from the off. When I first saw him, I thought he's either going to crash, make a lot of mistakes or calm down during the year."

And Harvey admits he thought that race-one error was "a portent of what's to come". Instead, it was one of the few mistakes King made all season. Bold moves on team-mate Webster at Brands Hatch and Oulton Park netted him double wins and caught the imagination of fans on TV, unable to witness King's brilliance in person due to coronavirus restrictions.

Even an engine problem at Knockhill and two Thruxton punctures failed to dethrone King's bid - he still wrapped up the crown with two races to spare. Such dominance looks straightforward on paper, but King insists there was a lot more to it than meets the eye.

"A lot of people obviously said, 'You're making it look easy', but it certainly wasn't," says King. "A lot of work went in on the build-up to a race weekend on Friday and in qualifying from Team Parker Racing and myself, and I think that's what helped to bridge the gap."

Moments like those Thruxton punctures, which both struck while he was leading, proved it certainly was not all plain sailing. And King believes they were very useful learning experiences.

"There was a lot of pressure and high-temper moments and you just have to sort of tone yourself down and you live to fight another day and bounce back from it," he says. "Thruxton was a big one - trying to remain cool after that second puncture. I think anybody would've been pretty frustrated at that point!

"To come back like we did the next weekend [at Silverstone] with pole position and two wins is all part of building the character and building yourself as a driver. Without those sorts of situations, you never learn. I wouldn't have liked them to happen, but they have probably made me a better person and a better driver, not just in the car but outside of the car as well."

King also highlights the condensed nature of the 2020 season as playing a part in his success. With the COVID-19 pandemic meaning the entire campaign was packed into just over three months, there was no time to dwell on disappointments such as what happened at Thruxton, and also plenty of opportunity to build title-winning momentum with back-to-back triumphs.

Perhaps one of King's less obvious traits is that he is incredibly self-critical. Take his disappointment at missing out on the win in that very first Donington race or the fact that he was gutted to lose his clean sweep of poles at the Brands finale.

When asked if there were many lessons he learned from the season, King says: "There's a lot! I'm quite self-critical out of the car. Even after a race win, I always know there's something I could've done better. In qualifying, we have been very strong but we didn't get eight of eight [poles]."

King says he "despises" the term 'learning year', and was eager to demonstrate his ability right from the start of his two seasons as the Porsche GB Junior. And one of the ways he did that was with his overtaking prowess and dramatic style behind the wheel.

"I think it's a natural touch with the car, I get on very well with it when it's on cold tyres, I think that's when we really do come into our own," says King about his passing ability. "After safety cars, for example, I feel like I've got a real advantage then.

"The racing was probably some of the best I've ever had in five years of car racing, and I think that's possibly the reason why people voted for me for National Driver of the Year, for those sort of overtakes, so it's nice to gain recognition for that."

"He's clearly exceptional. He's not just good or very good or good on his day, and there are very few drivers who are exceptional" Tim Harvey

He received plenty of recognition in the paddock, too. Harvey was left amazed by King's performances, saying "his sheer ability to drive the car at eleven or twelve tenths all the time without crashing or losing control" was the most impressive aspect.

"He absolutely wrung the car's neck," Harvey continues. "It was like you put Gilles Villeneuve in a Cup car! I've seen some great Porsche Carrera Cup drives from Nick Tandy and Dan Cammish, and I've never seen a Cup car driven in that manner. It was spectacular and fast."

But Harvey does have one slight note of caution about King's overtaking.

"He has this talent for literally going for every gap, a bit Ash Sutton-like," he says. "As we saw with Sutton at Croft [when he went for a risky move at the hairpin, which caused a puncture], it can't work for you every single time and the quality of driver will be better and better [as King progresses up the ladder] and they're not going to jump out the way - he's got to pick his opportunities."

Speaking of the future, King has a clear target in mind of where he would like to race, given the chance. His Porsche GB Junior stint is a two-year programme so, as well as racing in the Carrera Cup GB, he would like to tackle the Formula 1-supporting Supercup.

"Of course, I've got another year of Carrera Cup GB, which I'm thoroughly looking forward to and I'm looking to put in twice as much work as I did last year to remain that competitive in the series," King says. "There could be a new driver who comes in and makes my life hell and a lot more difficult but, as for the future, as well as Carrera Cup GB, the natural progression as a Porsche Junior driver is the Porsche Supercup.

"It's really competitive, has lots of different nationalities of drivers, and it's something I really fancy doing. But, of course, the finances for that are pretty big."

Harvey has no doubt that King has the potential to make it to the very top of the sport: "He's got the talent - he's clearly exceptional. He's not just good or very good or good on his day, and there are very few drivers who are exceptional. He is self-critical, he listens and he's a very complete racing driver for his age and experience. It will just depend on the opportunities he gets."

And that's just more high praise for a driver who gave those watching at home something to smile about during a very difficult 2020. The National Driver of the Year Award win is proof of that.