DANNY Kent has said that being the first British motorcycling Grand Prix World Champion in 38 years has yet to fully sink in.

The Chippenham-born racer sealed the Moto3 Championship by six points in the final race of the season in Valencia last weekend with a ninth place finish on his Honda.

The 21-year-old required just a 14th place finish in Spain to lift the title but, having started 18th on the grid after gear shift problems in qualifying, he had to fight his way through the field to clinch the crown.

“To be honest with you, it hasn’t sunk in yet,” Kent told the Gazette and Herald.

“It is a great feeling to be world champion, especially as we have gone into the last four races with the thought in the back of our minds knowing that maybe after this race, we could be world champions.

“We have not made it easy for ourselves and we have had to wait and now I am happy that we have finally been able to get it done.”

Kent stormed into an early lead in the championship, winning three of the first four races, and followed that up with victories in Spain and Germany before becoming the first British rider to win the lightweight race at his home Grand Prix at Silverstone.

However, Kent stumbled over the finish line with two retirements and a highest finish of sixth in his last five events prior to Saturday and was relieved to get the job done.

“I said in the press conference at the beginning of the weekend that of course it would be nice to finish on the podium but if we had to ride a safe race to win the championship, then that is what we’d do,” he added.

“We set up for staying at the back of the group and staying out of trouble and we brought home the championship.

“Starting in 18th definitely wasn’t part of the plan. It was difficult qualifying. We made a change with the bike’s gearbox and the gearing was a bit too short and it made the qualifying a little bit harder than it should have been, but I knew my race pace with the race tyre was quite good.

“At the beginning of the race, I was down in P14 and I was thinking to myself ‘this is not safe enough’.

“I kept on pushing and I got myself up to around seventh place and looked behind and there was about two seconds behind me and I thought ‘this is safe enough’ and I stayed in that position.

“We did what we needed to do.

“Of course there was a little bit of worry – nerves are a part of racing – but I am just happy it is all over now."