Edward Pearson picked up his second top-six finish of the GB3 Championship partnered by the BRDC season as his rookie campaign reached the half-way stage at Snetterton.
The teenage racer headed into the weekend on the back of a promising performance on track at Spa in the previous event, where he had powered his Fortec Motorsport-run car to a fine top ten finish in the second race of the weekend.
Edward showed solid pace during Thursday testing ahead of the weekend as he posted the 13th fastest time on the combined timesheets but he would go into the weekend on the back foot compared to his rivals having been forced to miss the two Friday sessions due to an exam.
Despite the lost track time compared to most of the field, Edward would go almost half a second quicker than he had done in practice when qualifying took place on Saturday morning to leave him 19th on the grid for race one, with his second-fastest time leaving him 20th on the grid for race two.
Retaining his place at the start of race one, Edward moved up into 18th on lap three when Costa Toparis suffered a spin exiting the first corner, and would retain the place through to the finish having chased Arthur Rogeon and Gerrard Xie throughout the race.
Making up places at the start of race two, Edward soon found himself back up in 18th place before a mid-race safety car period and a solid run through the final three laps when the action got back underway enabled him to work his way up into 15th.
With the reverse grid finale seeing Edward line up in sixth on the grid, a strong end to the weekend was on the cards and a solid start when the lights went out saw him move ahead of Shawn Rashid in the run to turn one.
From there, Edward ran in comfortable fifth place throughout as he wrapped up his second-best finish of the campaign to sit 18th at the half-way stage, albeit only nine points away from the top 15.
"Snetterton proved to be a really challenging weekend, but we were able to end it on a real high in the final race," he said. "I felt in good shape after Thursday testing but the fact that I had to miss the Friday sessions due to an exam meant my rivals were able to benefit from the extra track time.
"It disrupted my preparations a bit but I was able to set my fastest lap in qualifying and then made up places in the opening two races, which was a positive.
"We were able to show our pace in race three as once I was near the front, I had the speed to stay there in the top six, and I was really pleased to come away from a tough meeting with a top-five finish.
"Next up we head back to Silverstone and hopefully I can have a bit more luck than when we visited earlier in the season."
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