Backford's Joe Francis was on the podium at the Pirelli National Superstock 600 Championship at Snetterton.

Francis, who is studying A-level PE and engineering at Neston High School, races a 600cc Yamaha for Team Traction Control which is owned by Prodigy vocalist Keith Flint in what is a support class for the British Superbike Championships.

And he put a crash at Donington Park in the previous round behind him as he scorched to a third place finish at the Norfolk circuit which lifted him to third overall in the highly competitive championship.

The Backford Bullet narrowly missed out on the front row in qualifying and scrapping throughout with the leading pack before scorching to a third place at the chequered flag.

Francis said: “I have to be happy with third place though really I’m gutted because I was moving forwards and catching the front two, but I made a couple of little mistakes and couldn’t get in their slip-stream.

“I was nearly there but not enough to pull them in. It was a great result for the team, especially as we did struggle in places a bit over the weekend, but now we can move on to the next round at Knockhill and take it from there.”

Team owner Keith Flint added: “It was awesome and I’m so happy for Joe and the team. We keep plugging away and we all have our good and bad luck. It has been great, with Joe’s teammates doing well in their class, to have some more trophies to take home from Snetterton!”

Frodsham racer Howie Mainwaring-Smart had a mixed BSB weekend on board his Quattro Plant Bournemouth Kawasaki, finishing a solid eighth in race one before crashing out on lap 10 of race two. He currently sits ninth in the overall standings.

Howie Mainwaring-Smart of Frodsham
Howie Mainwaring-Smart of Frodsham

In four-wheel action, Delamere racer Andy Meyrick was in excellent form as he and his Bentley team-mates of Guy Smith and Steven Kane finished second at the latest round of the Blancpain Endurance Series at the Circuit Paul Ricard in France.

Meyrick and his team lost out on top spot to the Nissan of Katsumasa Chiyo, Wolfgang Reip and Alex Buncombe and had to use drive with guile to hold off the challenge of the Marc VDS BMW Z4 of Markus Palttala, Lucas Luhr and Maxime Martin.

Seb Morris delivered his best race performance of the season during round four of the GP3 Series at the Red Bull Ring in Austria on Sunday, with an outstanding drive to fifth place from 19th on the grid before eventually finishing seventh to secure his first points of the year.

The result ensured that former Abbey Gate College student Morris, from Marford, ended his second weekend in GP3 in 11th position in the championship, just a single point outside the top 10.

“I’m really happy to be honest, and it’s nice to come through the order like I did in race two, picking up so many places”, said the 19-year-old.

“We found some issues with the car after race one, so changed it massively for race two and it was much better – the main thing being I could push harder on the tyre.

“The aim now is to keep improving when we get to Silverstone in a couple of weeks.”