SALISBURY'S rising motor-racing star Ross Curnow enjoyed his best ever weekend in the Formula BMW Championship at Mondello Park, notching up two wins in the rookie competition and pushing hard for a podium place alongside the senior racers.

The talented 16-year-old, who is in his debut season racing single seaters, travelled to the Dublin track hoping to regain his place at the top of the rookie table, after suffering a devastating mechanical failure in the previous meeting at Oulton Park.

This time, everything ran like clockwork.

At the half-way point in the season, the Bishop Wordsworth's pupil now holds an 18-point lead in the race to secure a lucrative BMW sponsorship deal for next year.

Qualifying in fourth place for the first race of the weekend, he held his nerve, and his position, to finish fourth overall with a comfortable ten second lead over fellow rookie and main rival for the title Sam Bird.

Then, in a dramatic second race, he qualified a tantalising 0.2 of a second off pole position and found himself running in fifth and closing in on the leaders, who were tightly packed and jostling for the top three positions.

His dad Alan explained: "Things were getting a bit hairy ahead of him, with people banging wheels and going onto the grass.

"Ross took the decision to back off and protect his lead in the rookie race.

"He did the wise thing. There was no point getting carried away and racing for pure prestige, when there was a very real risk of getting involved in an incident up front and ending up with nothing."

Curnow's campaign was given a further boost after he recorded the fastest lap by a rookie in the first race, going round in 1:42.648.

Yet another consistent performance from the promising young racer has raised hopes that he will yet secure a pole position or a podium finish in the senior Formula BMW championship.

He said: "It was difficult to watch the leaders ahead of me and let them go, but the rookie championship is the one I need to protect.

"It was a good weekend for me, but there is plenty of time to go yet.

"It would be nice to make it onto the podium by the end of the season, though."

But Curnow didn't have much time to celebrate his progress through the ranks before it was back to more prosaic teenage business.

He returned from Ireland on Sunday night, and by Monday was sitting his AS-level exams.

He now has a month's break from racing before he defends his championship lead at Croft on July 24-25.