King Bull-ish after two more points finishes in Austria

Warm but cloudy conditions saw another tight qualifying session from the Formula 2 grid, with first to 13th separated by only a second.

King’s time of 1min 14.384sec was only enough to put him in 13th for the Saturday’s feature race but he was later promoted to 12th after teammate Sergio Sette Camara was disqualified from qualifying in post-session scrutineering.

The Harbury racer got off the line well and coming out of the first corner was running in tenth place, which he improved to ninth at the close of the first lap.

As Norman Nato and Luca Ghiotto fought for position ahead of him, King came under pressure from Sergio Canamasas.

Losing time behind the scrapping Nato and Ghiotto, King dived into the pits on lap six and rejoined the race in 17th place.

Managing his tyres after his early stop, King climbed back to tenth place before being overtaken by Louis Deletraz.

However, he fought back to regain tenth and, after teammate Sergio Sette Camara finally pitted, took the chequered flag in ninth.

After missing out on reverse pole by just a place, the 23-year-old started Sunday’s sprint race from ninth.

A stall from Ralph Boschung caused disruption for his side of the grid and King took advantage to come out of the first corner in fifth.

The safety car was brought out to help recover Raffaele Marciello’s car after he had struck the stranded Boschung and King made another fantastic start on resumption to maintain fifth spot.

King fought brilliantly to keep Canadian Nicholas Latifi behind him and eventually started to build a gap and cement his fifth place.

However, as the race hit the 18-lap mark, he came under pressure from a flying Ghiotto.

Knowing fighting him would kill his worn tyres and possibly cause him to lose more than one position by the end of the race, he let the Italian past.

It was to prove a smart move as King crossed the line in sixth place to round off another positive weekend in which he felt his hard worked paid off.

“It was a tough start to the weekend for us,” said King. “We were struggling with the performance of the car from the first session and it felt like it was better for qualifying.

“I thought I hooked my qualifying lap up really well but it just wasn’t quick enough to put us where we wanted to be.

“I had great starts in both the races which was really important to the end results.

“Ultimately we didn’t have the pace to be on the podium but we’ll be working hard to change that in time for Silverstone.”

King currently holds tenth position in the Driver’s Standings with 43 points ahead of his home Grand Prix this weekend.