YOUNG racer Louis Foster enjoyed another strong weekend on track as the Ginetta Junior Championship headed north to Oulton Park for the fourth round of the season.

The 14-year-old Lord Wandsworth College student from Odiham went into the weekend looking to maintain the impressive run of form that left him setting second in the championship standings.

Qualifying would prove to be a challenge however, with Foster lining up eighth on the grid for the opening race of the weekend at the wheel of his Elite Motorsport-run car.

Despite admitting that he wasn’t entirely happy with his car, Foster was able to make forward progress up the order and would take the flag in fourth place as the top rookie.

The exclusion of race winner Luke Browning then saw the Odiham driver promoted onto the overall podium in third place.

With the grid for race two determined by a driver’s second best time in qualifying, Foster lined up 11th on the grid, but a strong opening lap saw him immediately jump into the top seven.

Staying out of trouble as a number of incidents occurred ahead, Foster then found himself dicing for second spot with team-mate Greg Johnson and made his move for position at the final corner a few laps from the end.

A second podium finish of the weekend – and seventh rookie win of the year – gave the teenager an impressive haul of 56 points from the weekend and means he has now closed to within nine points of the championship lead ahead of the next round at Croft in two weeks time.

Foster also retains his position at the head of the Rookie standings.

“After a difficult qualifying session, it’s turned out to be a good weekend,” he said. “We should have been higher on the grid but I didn’t get a tow in the session, which cost me valuable time, and it left us on the back foot a little bit.

“Going into race one, we didn’t quite have the pace that I expected and were losing out a little bit in the straights, but I was still able to battle my way forwards. To come from eighth to finish as top rookie was really good, and then from eleventh on the grid it was great to take a second place finish in race two and put some good points on the board.

“Okay so I had luck on my side a little bit with penalties for other drivers in race one and then some incidents elsewhere in race two, but that makes up for the bad luck we had at Thruxton last time out.

“To come away from the weekend with the biggest points score from where we qualified is really pleasing and keeps us in the mix. It gives us good momentum to take to Croft, where I’m confident we can have a strong weekend.”