• Huff keeps his nerve and nets 7th place

Rob Huff drove one of the best races of his emerging career to slice from 21st to seventh in the rain-lashed Formula Renault round at Snetterton.

With cars veering off the circuit in all directions on the slippery surface the 21-year-old Cambridge driver kept his nerve and his head to steer the Vibe FM, Cameron Hotels-backed car through the pack.

But he was still able to show the skills which make him such an exciting prospect, hammering past five opponents at once on the fourth lap, then weaving between two cars in a daring move at the chicane.

"That was probably one of my best manoeuvres in the time I've been racing," he said, "I enjoyed that. It was one of my best finishes in those circumstances. You had to be very steady and concentrate hard.

"Only one driver started the race on wet tyres, the rest of us went for slicks, and when the sudden storms hit us it was like driving on ice at times.

"I'd been taken out in a couple of my previous races, and after getting the great backing from Vibe and Cameron Hotels I was determined it wasn't going to happen this time.

"The race was another part of the learning process at this level, and I think I could handle a different sort of challenge."

That challenge was made tougher by problems in qualifying when he was shocked to find himself last-but-one on the 22 car grid despite being only half a second outside the track record.

"Everybody was very quick," he said, "but we discovered we had a gearing problem. The cable was stretched and I wasn't able to use the gears to help me slow the car, which meant that I couldn't accelerate at the point when I needed to.

But we sorted that out, and switched to a medium instead of a long gear ratio, and the car handled very well in the race.

"I was very careful at the start and was last for a couple of laps, but I was up to 15th after going past the five on lap four, and managed to keep on picking people off after a six lap delay when the safety car came out following a crash."