Sean Walkinshaw made an encouraging start to the Protyre Formula Renault BARC Championship pre-season at Donington Park by posting the fastest time – just half a second outside the lap record.

The 18-year-old Cheltenham College student, from Chipping Norton, is heading into his second full season, having started as a complete car racing novice in Protyre Formula Renault BARC at the start of 2011.

The son of motor racing entrepeneneur Tom Walkinshaw, who died in 2010, starred in the first officially-timed run of the pre-season at Donington.

His MTech Lite team were buoyed by the youngster’s tremendous progress.

Lapping the 1.98-mile track with a best time of 1min 8.335secs (104.26mph), he ended the outing almost a full second clear of Brazilian driver Henrique Baptista.

More notably, the lap got him to within just 0.5secs of 2011 champion Dino Zamparelli’s lap record, set last April.

In the morning session, Walkinshaw was also the quickest BARC driver with a time of 1.08.926.

Travelling across the East Midlands to Rockingham Motor Speedway for an unofficially-timed run, he maintained his momentum with another impressive outing.

“It’s been a good start to the year so far,” he said.“Everything is going really well.

“It’s a great team and they’re really helping me improve.

“Donington was great, to get within half a second of the lap record shows the sort of improvements we’ve been making.

“If we continue like this, it should be a good season.”

More testing is planned before the first meeting at Snetterton over Easter weekend April 7-8.

Meanwhile, Walkinshaw’s brother, Fergus, delivered a solid first Ginetta GT Supercup outing of the year during the official series media day at Silverstone.

The 20-year-old Oxford Brookes University automotive engineering student posted his best Ginetta G55 lap time yet around the National circuit.

With his fastest time clocking in at over 0.7secs quicker than his best qualifying lap set on fresh tyres last October, he is already on promising form ahead of his first full Ginetta GT Supercup season with Century Motorsport.

Walkinshaw said: “Our main focus was on shaking down the car and running-in the engine, rather than worrying about all-out lap times. With that in mind, I’m pleased to see such an improvement.”

The first round in the series is at Brands Hatch on March 31/April 1.