FRASER ROGERS, from Hullavington, has earned a place in the CEV Buckler Moto3 (Spanish) Championship as part of the Racing Steps Foundation-backed motorcycle racing squad.

The new KRP-run team, which also includes John McPhee (Oban, Argyll) and Wayne Ryan (New Romney, Kent) completed some preliminary testing on their all-new Moto3 Hondas in Jerez, Spain last week.

Rogers, 16, a former recipient of the Wilts & Glos Standard Sports Grant, will contest seven rounds in the Spanish series at World Championship circuits such as Barcelona, Valencia and Motorland Aragon.

He will also compete in a limited number of rounds in the both the Italian and German Championships with the KRP team.

Team spokesman Peter Ball said: “It's looking as if we're in reasonably good shape albeit we'd be a lot happier if we'd got a lot more kilometres of testing under our belts at this late stage. The time lag in the supply of vital components has really thrown a spanner in the works, as a result of which we won't be anywhere near as well prepared for the first race (Jerez, April 1) as we would like to have been.”

Rogers added: “Obviously the less-than-ideal set-up meant the performance was a bit lumpy, but we rode round that particular problem to get up to speed with the feel of the new four-stroke power pretty quickly.”

Talented Rogers won the Thundersport GB 125cc Aprilia Superteens series back in 2008 and the Thundersport GB GP3 Championship the following year. In 2010, he was sixth overall in the British 125GP Championship.

The Racing Steps Foundation (RSF) is a private, not-for-profit fund that provides and finances competition and personal performance development programmes for young British racing drivers and motorcycle racers.