Mike Bushell had a mixed weekend in the Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup at Donington Park.

He qualified in fifth place on Saturday meaning that he was going to have to make up a few places to get onto the podium in the races on Easter Sunday.

In race one he managed to make those places up and finished on the podium after his car came good in the closing laps on a drying track.

The drying track enabled Bushell to get a run on the Westbourne car driven by James Colburn, the Pyro driver grabbed third into Coppice and then set off after Ant Whorton-Eales.

With his car set-up to come on stronger during the drier, latter part of the race, Bushell was able to reel in the second placed man during the closing stages.

At the start of lap seven, Whorton-Eales was almost two seconds clear of Bushell but the Pyro racer punched in a series of fastest laps and into the 14th and final tour he was within touching distance of his rival. Nosing ahead through Hollywood, Bushell grabbed second and although Whorton-Eales got a good run through Schwantz to try and return the favour into McLeans the order stayed the same.

Speaking after the first race, Bushell said: “We had the car set for the end of the race, we took a bit of a gamble on the rain stopping and we know water shifts offline quickly here at Donington.

“We were really quick towards the end pace-wise which was great. We need to try and get away from the start in the next one.”

Race two however wouldn’t follow in the same fashion as the first race as contact on the first lap would put pay to progress that he was hoping to make.

Jordan Stilp began the race on pole position, his first ever in Clios, but contact between the 20Ten Racing driver and fellow front-row starter Bushell yards from the grid enabled Cook to sweep through for the lead – having qualified in fourth place.

As Bushell moved across to the right-hand side of the track, Stilp maintained his course and the inevitable contact unfortunately sent the Team Pyro car spearing back across the circuit into the barriers on the outside of the track.

That would be the end of the Tunbridge Wells based driver’s race weekend and resulted in the safety car being deployed. The Clio Cup now has a two week break before returning to racing at Thruxton over the May Day bank holiday weekend.