MALMESBURY'S Moto3 star Danny Kent finished 12th at the legendary American circuit of Indianapolis over the weekend as the world championship series returned from its summer break, writes Alannah Fellows.

Kent has found his return to the Moto3 class tougher than anticipated and at a track where he has struggled in the past, the 20-year-old qualified in a lowly 17th position on his Red Bull Husqvarna Ajo machine.

Kent soon moved through the field, however, and was racing with the second group of riders in the 23-lap race.

After a battling ride, Kent crossed the line just 4.4 seconds behind the winner Efren Vazquez of Spain and secured four more championship points. Kent said: "We knew the race would be very difficult because yesterday we didn’t have a good qualifying session and we started from 17th.

"In the early stages I lost a lot of time to the first group – maybe as much as eight seconds. Later I started to ride at my own pace and I closed the gap to four seconds.

"We had the pace to be up at the front, but the problem was that my start wasn’t great. At least we’ve learned something this weekend: I need to have a good qualifying session. If we do this, then we are able to be up at the front.”

The MotoGP paddock now heads straight back to Europe for the 11th round of the championship in the Czech Republic at the circuit of Brno.

CIRENCESTER Deer Park pupil Jordan Weaving put in another strong performance in treacherous weather conditions at Cheshire's Oulton Park at the weekend to maintain his lead in the British Motostar Championship.

The 17-year-old is not a fan of wet conditions and a downpour minutes before the race left him feeling cautious over the 10 laps.

However, the teenager rode a mature race, working his way through the pack to earn a podium finish.

Weaving had to try some risky moves in the final lap to hold off American Jayson Uribe and their elbows touched at least twice at 140mph along the Island Bend section.

Weaving has yet to finish off the podium throughout 2014 and race winner Joe Irving was not able to make much of a dent in his championship lead which now stands at 14 points.

"I got a bad start and went from third down to about ninth," said Weaving.

"As the race went on I got more and more confidence and began to hunt down the front group. I fought hard for the podium, which meant in the end I lost just five points in championship race.

"It could have been worse so I'm happy to end the weekend on a good spot."

CIRENCESTER'S Josh Day enjoyed a solid race at Oulton Park in the National Superstock 1000 Championship, crossing the line in 11th.

Day had got the weekend off to a positive start when putting his Be Wiser Kawasaki into seventh position in free practice on Friday.

However, Day met difficulties in the first qualifying session leaving the 26-year-old to post just one competitive lap time.

He did improve in the second qualifying session and started the race from 11th on the grid.

The race was brought forward to Saturday afternoon following a poor weather forecast for Sunday and he was able to finish in his starting position of 11th.

Day said: "It was an up-and-down weekend at Oulton for me. It started well with seventh in practice. Then we had some problems with gearing during qualifying.

"I managed just one fast lap in qualifying because there were so many people out on the track.

"We made some more changes for the race and it took me a few laps to get settled into a rhythm, by which point the leading bunch had vanished."

Day has two weeks to prepare for round nine of the championship at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire.