Dan Zelos has ramped up the pressure in the chase for the 2013 Super 1 Series crown by scything through the spray to a magnificent podium double in the fiercely-contested British Championship at Rowrah in Cumbria.

Zelos returned to Rowrah only a week after storming to a superb victory there in the prestigious O Plate outing, leaving him confident about his prospects whatever the weather. Recognising that it was both a psychological boost and a signal of intent to have the coveted O Plate adorning his Tooley Motorsport kart, the talented young Norfolk speed demon was targeting two good, consistent finishes and plenty of points following the second place he had achieved courtesy of a defensive master class in the Three Sisters national curtain-raiser the previous month.

The O Plate was a really tough field, he acknowledged, but being a one-off meeting, it had relied upon driving balls-out and flat-out. With a long season ahead in Super 1, this time you really had to think situations through and adopt a much more considered approach.

On a drying track surface in qualifying, Zelos lapped an excellent second-fastest in his groupa scant three hundredths of a second shy of the benchmarkbut due to the vagaries of the Super 1 system, that equated to only ninth overall out of the 39 high-calibre Mini Max class contenders as the drivers in the later session benefitted from the best of the weather conditions. That restricted the highly-rated Dereham-based hotshot to sixth on the grid for each of his two heat raceson the unenviable outside line.

A driver in front of me spun at the start of heat one and I had to take to the grass in avoidance, which dropped me to eighth, he recounted. I focussed on fighting my way back through and once I had recovered to third, I set about homing in on the two leaders. I kept pushing to the end and had closed right up on them when the chequered flag came out. I just needed a couple more laps...

Getting quicker-and-quicker as the race progressedas evinced by setting the fastest lap on the very last tourit was a gritty effort indeed, and one that carried Zelos to scarcely a quarter-of-a-second adrift of the winner at the close. On a wet circuit, heat two would produce a not altogether dissimilar tale.

Just like in heat one, there was a spinner directly in front of me going into the first corner and I had nowhere to go and ended up T-boning him, the 14-year-old rued. The delay dropped me to 11th, but I got my head down again and concentrated on moving forwards and picking my rivals off one-by-one. I didnt look back onceI was just so determined to make up as many places as I could.

That assiduous approach yielded a tremendous third place when the flag fell, rapidly narrowing the deficit to the runner-up and lapping faster than both of the drivers who finished ahead of him. The result earned Zelos second on the grid for the first of the weekends two finalson the outside line once more, which meant his most immediate objective was simply surviving Turn One intact...

I got away well, and although I conceded one position, I regained it pretty much straightaway, he recalled. I quickly opened up a gap over the drivers behind, but unfortunately I didnt have the speed to challenge the leader so I focussed on holding my position, keeping everything neat-and-tidy and not making any silly mistakes in the tricky conditions.

It was quite a lonely race with nobody to battle against until my team-mate began catching me towards the end, but I knew he wouldnt risk anything stupid and in any case, he never got quite close enough to attack. I was pleased to finish second because that obviously represented really good points towards the championship, but I was disappointed that we werent fast enough to fight for the win. The kart felt good and I drove well; we were just lacking that last little bit of pace.

In the second final, I got another solid start from the outside of the grid and only lost one place to my team-mate. He pulled away a little initially, but I soon saw that I was quicker and after a fun, clean battle I found a way past. We then worked together to establish a gap over the chasing pack so we wouldnt come under threat from behind.

I tried to keep up with the leader, but with the advantage of a clear track ahead of him and no spray, he was able to edge away againalthough encouragingly, not by as much as he had done in the first final. My team-mate overtook me for second towards the end, but he then made a mistake exiting the chicane which let me back through and after that it was pretty plain sailing, to be truthful.

Hearteningly lapping barely a tenth of a second adrift of the winner on this occasion, the outcome marked the Northgate High School pupils third runner-up finish from four Super 1 finals to-date this year and has vaulted him from third to second in the title standings heading next to Glan Y Gors in June. As he strives to keep the upward momentum going, Zelos has vowed to come out fighting in North Wales.

I was happy with our results over the weekend and really pleased to move up to second in the points table, but the main thing Rowrah proved is that the entire grid is lacking something compared to the championship leaderand we need to find out what it is, he concluded. Weve got a lot of hard work to do between now and Glan Y Gors. In many respects, its a very similar track to Rowrah with its undulating nature and unpredictable weather conditionsand the goal has to be the podium again. But to do that, we need to unlock the missing pace...