Teenage motorsport star Charlie Hart collected his third trophy of the 2023 Michelin Ginetta Junior Championship with a spectacular drive at Donington Park last weekend.

The 14-year-old, from Rivington, headed to the East Midlands for the third meeting of his rookie season in the highly-competitive one-make Ginetta series for young drivers, having claimed podium finishes at Oulton Park and Silverstone consecutively.

Following in dad Chris’s footsteps, the youngster, racing for Elite Motorsport, took part in three races alongside the British GT Championship, qualifying seventh on the grid for the first race in a hotly-contested timed session.

In race one on Saturday, Charlie got his elbows out and moved up into the top six, before switching inside Mikey Porter at Coppice corner with a well-judged move and climbing to fourth at the hairpin shortly afterwards.

He soon found himself dragged into a multi-car squabble for the lead in the dying laps, climbing briefly to second at the penultimate hairpin. Contact was made but he survived, only to be collected by a spinning car at the final corner as he crawled home an unlucky ninth.

Hart Junior turned his focus to Sunday’s double-header and started in style by climbing up to third place in a feisty opening two laps to latch on to the back of the leaders.

Battling hard with McKenzie Douglass, Charlie held off his rivals to claim third and bag another trophy in his strong maiden Ginetta Junior season.

Starting the final race from position three, Charlie again rolled up his sleeves and made a super start to jump into second spot. What followed was a relentless time trial as Hart kept the race leader Freddie Slater within range, while holding Porter at bay all race.

A fine display warranted second place on the road, but a fourth podium was taken away from him cruelly by a five-second time penalty for two track limits offences. It would still be enough for fourth place to wrap up a positive weekend where Charlie showed strong pace, climbing up to fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship standings.

He said: “Overall, it was a really positive weekend for me and the team.

“We had good pace all weekend and were right in contention to get a win, but a podium finish is positive.

“We were still a bit unlucky not to get more trophies from it. In the first race we recovered well and I was unlucky to be taken out through no fault of our own by a crash ahead of me. Then in the last race we got a time penalty. Otherwise it’s a double podium.

“But to be second on the road in the last race showed us what we’ve got, and proved we had good pace.

“There are lots of positives to take from this weekend.”

Charlie will be back in action this weekend as the youngster races at Silverstone once more for the Ginetta ‘G Fest’ event.

Dad Chris battled from the back of the grid in his second British GT Championship event of the 2023 season at the same track - but would be denied a golden chance to win his class last weekend.

After grabbing a brilliant podium finish on his GT3 Silver-Am class debut at the prestigious Silverstone 500 earlier in May, Hart - sharing a Mercedes AMG GT3 machine with youngster James Wallis - hoped for more of the same success with the Track Focused/Drivetac team.

It was a difficult start to the weekend in the East Midlands, however, as damage to the car caused by kerbs left them out of much of Saturday’s action, forcing them to start from the back of the GT3 grid with a fresh engine thanks to a superb repair job by the team overnight.

In front of the Sky Sports cameras, Hart started the Mercedes for the opening stint of the two-hour endurance race on Sunday.

What followed was a sensational drive as the Mercedes driver carved his way through from the rear of the field, climbing from 17th on the grid into the top 10 with a fine display of overtaking.

Having made a move up to ninth, Hart had grabbed the class lead in Silver-Am. But the dream of a class victory was hit with an unfortunate hammer blow as the Drivetac Mercedes suffered a loose bonnet and spun to the grass after receiving contact from a rival Lamborghini, Hart forced to limp back to the pits for repairs. The Mercedes was again forced in for repairs in the final stages.

Hart said: “It was a real shame, as the guys had done a mega job to get us back out there after the rough start to the weekend. It all just hasn’t gone our way sadly.

“We were absolutely flying in the first stint of the race. Car felt great, and we kept gaining ground throughout. We got up into the top 10, then we had contact and it damaged the car and led to the bonnet flying up. We’ve both been quick, which is the real positive and who knows - we could have even won that one in our class from where we got ourselves too. We’ll come back at Snetterton and try and put that right.”

Hart returns to British GT action at Snetterton over the weekend of June 17/18.