KELTY race ace Ronan Pearson continued an encouraging start to his motorsport season with a hat-trick of top ten finishes at Brands Hatch.

The 2022 Quaife Mini Challenge competitor went into the series' second meeting of the year high on confidence after a race-winning performance in the opener at Donnington Park last month.

Ronan, who is competing in the series for a third year, joined defender champions EXCELR8 Motorsport last year, and signed up as a member of the team's BTCC (British Touring Car Championship) Young Driver Programme.

Although he went comfortably below the previous qualifying lap record, the close nature of the times posted saw him line up 12th on the grid for the opening race of the weekend, where he battled hard in sweltering conditions to climb three places to ninth.

The two races which followed on the final day of action saw rain behind to fall, but Ronan made a strong start in race two, climbing into the top six, but he would eventually finish in eighth place.

A even better start to the final race saw the Fifer move up to fifth but, with multiple safety car periods impacting on proceedings, which saw him battle for fourth when an incident on track saw the action halted, a decision to classify the race at the end of lap 15 saw him declared sixth, despite sitting fifth when the red flag came out.

The results have left Ronan sitting fourth in the Championship standings, and he said: "We’ve had to work really hard this weekend and were on the back foot a bit after qualifying.

"We weren’t able to match the results we picked up at Donington, but I know it won’t always be plain sailing in a championship like this and it’s all about bagging the points.

"The conditions on Sunday were a massive challenge as these cars are so tricky to drive in the wet, but the fact we stayed out of trouble when there were quite a few incidents happening around us is a big positive.

"To be inside the top four in the standings after two rounds is good and this weekend has shown that even when things don’t go quite to plan, we can still bring home solid points that could be vital when we get to the business end of the season."

The series resumes at Oulton Park, Cheshire, over the weekend of June 10-12.