CHARLIE ROBERTSON delivered a consistently strong showing throughout the first event of the brand new BRDC Formula 4 Championship at Silverstone over the weekend, finishing the race meeting fifth in the driver standings.
With a best result of fourth position during round three on Sunday afternoon, the 16-year-old reigning Ginetta Junior Champion was fifth in the season-opening race on Saturday and also added a hard-fought seventh place in round two to bag a very important haul of points.
"The main thing this weekend was to score well in each race, which we've done, and have a strong start to the season so I'm happy enough with that", said the Whyteleafe teenager.
"It would have been nice to be on the podium but for my first three races in single-seaters, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome."
Robertson's weekend got off to a trying start during qualifying for round one, ending up ninth after having to back off during his quickest lap due to yellow flags being shown.
But he produced a solid drive to work his way up to fifth in the race, with some outstanding overtaking moves helping him along the way, while his best lap was just half a second shy of the quickest.
In the second race, Robertson found himself down in eighth early on, although the Caterham School pupil worked his way back up to sixth, before eventually finishing seventh.
But his best result came in the third race, with Robertson overcoming a poor start to just miss out on a maiden Formula 4 podium by one-and-a-half seconds, finishing fourth.
Afterwards, he said: "Race three was definitely our best chance of a podium and if I hadn't got pushed back at the start then I think we had the pace to do it.
"Overall it's been a decent start for us, a good foundation to build on during the next rounds at Brands Hatch."
Robertson will be back in action three weeks from now, over the weekend of May 18/19, for rounds four, five and six of the BRDC Formula 4 Championship at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit.
Marking the biggest race meeting of the season for the F4 competitors, the category will run as part of the support card for the visiting DTM 'German touring cars' and FIA Formula 3 European Championship.