Rising British motor racing star Jonathan Kennard suffered a bundle of bad luck at this weekend's seventh and eighth rounds of the Lloyds TSB Insurance British Formula 3 International Series, but still managed to add four points to his seasonal tally.

The ‘luck of the Irish' was clearly not with Tunbridge Wells ace Kennard on the day before his 21st birthday, and he and his Alan Docking Racing team struggled to find the right set-up for his Mugen-Honda powered Dallara.

Despite this, Kennard battled on to score an impressive eighth place on the grid for race one in the wet first qualifying session.  The dry second session left him in a rather more disappointing 13th place for the start of race two.

“Practice and qualifying were pretty awful,” admitted Kennard. “We changed so many different things on the car set-up but nothing seemed to work and the car just wouldn't handle properly.  In the wet it was easier to drive so the eighth place in first qualifying was good.”

Still troubled by handling difficulties in the first race, Kennard did exceedingly well to hang on to his car and put in a solid performance around the tight and twisty Mondello Park circuit.  Not only did he hold his position but gained a place when Yelmer Buurman and Christian Bakkerud clashed in front of him, sending Bakkerud spinning down the order.

Things got considerably worse for Jonathan as the cars filed out to line up on the grid for the second race of the day.  Having completed the warm-up lap, Kennard was halfway through the green flag lap before the start of the race when a rare engine problem caused his throttle stuck wide open at turn 5, sending him into the wall and out of the race before the lights had even gone out.

“I wasn't doing a very high speed at the time,” said Kennard. “In a way, I'm glad it happened there - if it had happened one corner further along it would have been a big accident.”

However, it was no consolation to Kennard, who left Ireland knowing that he had not been allowed the chance to show what he can do.

Jonathan will be in action again for rounds nine and 10 of the series at Snetterton in Norfolk on July 15/16.