James' joy at joining new team

8:00am Friday 30th November 2007

JAMES Thorp's brilliant 2007 international karting season has been rewarded for 2008 with a factory drive at the team that beat him to the European Championship!

The 15-year-old Evesham racer is moving up to senior karting after finishing third in the Junior European Championship and has signed a deal to race for Maranello Kart next year.

"I'm looking forward to racing with Maranello, I can learn so much from them and hopefully can win plenty more races. It's my GCSE year, though, at the Kings School in Worcester, so fitting everything in is going to be tough but not impossible," he admitted.

Team manager Euan Jeffery is also very happy with his new driver: "We are all very pleased here at Maranello to have James on board as he is a very fast and promising young driver with a lot of talent."

Thorp's first few races in the KF2 category proved a resounding success and his win at the Industrial Trophy at Parma last month sealed his reputation as a driver to watch.

The teenager will race in the European and Italian Championships as a teammate to multiple World champion, Davide Fore.