Sean Walkinshaw climbed into the top 10 of the EuroFormula Open championship standings during his ‘home’ event at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit over the weekend, 19th/20th July, with a best finish of seventh place coming in round nine on Saturday.Continuing the front-running form which had delivered points results in the previous four races, the 20-year-old from Chipping Norton was again a leading contender throughout the weekend although round 10 on Sunday ended in disappointment when lap two contact cost another certain score.In stark contrast to the glorious, baking hot summer sunshine during the build-up to the Silverstone weekend, round nine qualifying on Saturday morning took place in very wet conditions. Impressing on the saturated track surface, Sean ran in the top four for a large chunk of the session before taking the sixth fastest time in the end – a lap of 2m12.377 seconds (160.179 km/h).Although the circuit was wet in places for race one, slicks were undoubtedly the tyre of choice and all drivers opted for them. Edged back to seventh at Copse off the start, and then eighth soon after, Sean was subsequently held out wide at Club to slip to ninth but from there he immediately hit back.Re-taking eighth and settling down into a rhythm, the Campos Racing driver began to steadily close on the group of cars ahead. As team-mate Konstantin Tereschenko and John Simonyan intensified their battle, on lap eight Sean was able to mount an attack when his two rivals made contact at Club.Moving past Simonyan for seventh place on the exit, he immediately latched onto the tail of Tereschenko. Pressuring hard into the complex, Sean made a superb cutback and after switching to the outside line for the exit at Aintree the Briton brilliantly swept past the Russian for sixth.After a couple of laps Sean managed to begin edging away but having built a cushion of 1.6 seconds by the start of lap 11, his advantage was then eroded. Holding off Tereschenko initially, Sean was a sitting duck into Copse at the start of lap 14 after his rival got good drive out of Woodcote.Sticking with his team-mate over the course of the final two laps, Sean crossed the line a mere 0.4 seconds adrift at the chequered flag in seventh position. Notably, the result lifted the Oxfordshire racer into the coveted championship top 10.“We had a really good qualifying in the wet on Saturday and we could still have been a bit higher up on the grid”, he commented, “I made some good moves coming back through after dropping to the tail of the top 10 on the first lap, we got up into the top six which we held until almost the end. It’s a shame I couldn’t quite hold on to sixth, but seventh was still a good result.“My team-mate got me on the second to last lap, if we’d had another two or three laps I think we could have maybe got the place back. He [Tereschenko] had the advantage of being in my tow but as soon as he got ahead, I was able to sit in his tow. With a bit more time we could have re-challenged.”Beginning Sunday’s race from 11th on the grid, Sean made a good getaway from the line and held position. After a strong run through Club and up to The Loop, he was poised to attack out of Aintree and as the pack headed into Brooklands he seized his chance to climb into the top 10.Getting a good exit from Woodcote, ninth place was then on the cards as Sean managed to nose alongside Wei Fung Thong on the inside line for Copse at the start of lap two. Contact at the turn-in point, though, as Thong tried to hold position resulted in both cars spinning.Thankfully able to recover to the track, Sean rejoined in 14th place and pushed hard to latch onto the group ahead. Holding 13th position into the closing stages, on the last lap he was able to claim a top 12 finish when Che One Lim had an excursion.“The first lap was quite good”, reflected Sean, “Into the first corner on the second lap I was side-by-side with the [Team] West-Tec car and he just cut across me – the contact damaged my front-left a little bit as after that the tyre was badly grained and the steering wasn’t quite there.“I pushed hard to catch the guys in front, we just couldn’t quite get back into the top 10 which was a shame. The balance of the car was better for race two than it was on Saturday, so disappointing we were prevented from making more of that. We’ve had really good pace again this weekend, though, so it’s all looking positive for Spa.”Sean now has a lengthy seven week break from active competition with rounds 11 and 12 of the EuroFormula Open season taking place at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium on 6th/7th September.Provisional 2014 EuroFormula Open Standings (after Rd10):10th Sean Walkinshaw, 30ptsProvisional 2014 Spanish F3 Championship Standings (after Rd4):10th Sean Walkinshaw, 13pts