Despite the long summer holidays following the end of his exams, there has been little respite for young rally driver Tom Delaney. The 15 year-old may have finished his studies but the addition of a new car to the team, re-built and prepared by Tom at father Dominic's SVP workshop, has kept the youngster busy throughout the summer.

While Tom drives a 1000cc Suzuki Alto in the 2015 Formula 1000 Junior rally series, he has been testing in the 1600cc Suzuki Swift to gain valuable seat time as well as experience on gravel and in a left-hand drive car - both new to him.

He has also received useful tuition and guidance from Tom Cave, another driver who started young and is working his way up the rallying ladder.

Tom Delaney's most recent outing was at the Phil Price Rally School in Wales, where he tested the Swift on gravel for the first time. While the F1000 series runs exclusively on asphalt, Tom's only gravel experience so far was driving his father's FIA historic-specification Peugeot 205 GTi at a recent photoshoot for a magazine feature.

While that outing ended with a spin and a dented bumper, Tom's most recent outing was a far more successful event; he enjoyed driving the car on gravel enormously, with the greater feeling with it moving around on the loose surface and now would prefer, if it were possible, to be competing on loose events.

"Driving the Swift on the gravel was excellent," he said. "I had already tried the car on tarmac at Curborough so I had a bit of experience of driving a left-hand drive car, which wasn't as difficult as I thought. It didn't take long to feel natural and be able to place the car where I wanted.

"To then take that onto gravel was excellent. I hadn't been on loose surfaces except in the Peugeot and this was really good. The car was moving around all the time and you have to do a lot more to stay in control but I really enjoyed it and can't wait until I can compete on gravel as well as tarmac."

Father Dominic said; "It was really useful experience to be able to get Tom in a left-hand drive car as, if he continues in rallying, then sooner or later, he will need to be on that side of the car. But he also adapted really well to driving on gravel. His tarmac driving has improved enormously but it's a very different way of driving to gravel and I wanted him to experience both, to start to understand how the two differ.

"He reacted really well to the loose surface. Of course, driving on tarmac is about being precise and neat and tidy but on gravel, the car is constantly moving around and it helps to get him used to the constant corrections and inputs that are required on that surface.

"The help that Tom Cave gave him was also really useful. He has a huge amount of experience, having also started driving at 15 and its useful for my Tom to see how this can help young drivers to progress."

Tom's next rally is the Peter Lloyd Stages rally in October, giving him plenty of time to continue testing, as well as finalise his on-going plans, which could see him taking-up an apprenticeship at SVP, working on Porsche road and race cars or return to school to begin further education.