Alex Nevill came within 0.284 of a second of victory in a thrilling third race at Thruxton following a challenging and intense weekend for the Kent racer and the Mini Challenge Cooper Trophy paddock.

The weekend got off to a fantastic start for Alex, qualifying his Graves Motorsport prepared machine in third position.

However a poor start at the beginning of race one saw the Motorsport UK Academy squad member drop 11 places on the opening lap of the race, crossing the line at the end of lap one in 14^th position. From there Alex launched a strong recovery drive to finish in 7^th place in an incident filled race.

A much better start in race two saw Alex run with the lead pack before a red flag was triggered by a horrific crash for fellow competitor Clark Wells, who was thankfully unharmed.

The race was restarted at which point Alex began to fall down the field as he struggled with handling issues. He eventually finished 10^th, which would be his starting position for race three.

With a couple of adjustments made for the final race, Alex was able to move forward at the start of the race making one position on the first lap and six places on the second lap to move into third place.

From there, the 2018 Cooper Am Champion was engaged in an enthralling multi car battle for the win which provided huge entertainment for the TV audience watching live on ITV2.

A red flag brought the race to an unfortunate and premature end with the results being taken from the lap prior to the incident which saw Alex classified in fifth place.

Although the end result wasn’t as hoped, Alex was upbeat about the performance. He said: “It hurts to be so close to a win and not even get the podium, but I gave it my all and we can’t ask for any more than that.

“We’ve worked so well as a team this weekend, and although our results don’t reflect it we’ve proved we’re ready to win races and we also made good progress in the championship following our struggles in round 1 at Oulton Park.”

Alex and the rest of the Mini Challenge grid are straight back to action this coming weekend at Snetterton with a pair of races on Saturday at the Norfolk venue.

Images courtesy of www.pspimages.co.uk