THERE were mixed emotions yet again for Rory Collingbourne after rounds three and four of racing in the Renault UK Clio Cup at Donington Park.

The Team Cooksport driver improved on his results in the season opener at Brands Hatch earlier this month but it might have been so much better.

Collingbourne finished 11th in race one and ninth in race two – the latter was his maiden top-10 placing of the campaign – and he achieved those results from 19th and 20th on the grid.

The teenager originally qualified with the fifth and ninth fastest times for the respective races, only to be penalised for exceeding track limits – and that wasn’t the only setback Collingbourne had to deal with.

He was up to seventh early on in round three but a handful of collisions forced the race to be restarted, with drivers returning to their original grid positions when the action got underway again.

Jamsport Racing’s Ant Whorton-Eales and WDE Motorsport’s Paul Rivett were the two race winners.

The former thought he had completed a double but was stripped of the win in round four because of a technical infringement with his car.

In claiming finishes of third and first over the weekend, Rivett took his tally of podium places to 100.

He also leads the championship by 15 points from Paul Streather, with Pattison, the frontrunner after the opening two rounds at Brands Hatch, third overall.

Collingbourne sits 12th in the standings on 30 points, 14 behind the third Team Cooksport driver, George Jackson, who occupies ninth place.

“My fastest laps in qualifying got taken away from me,” said Collingbourne. “I thought I had qualified P5 and P9 but it turned out to be P19 and P20.

“I went over a certain point of the track and they said I had an unfair advantage from taking that line. Some definitely got away with it and some didn’t.”

He added: “I’d got up to seventh in race one but there was a lot of carnage and they reset the grid for the restart.

“I still managed to go from 19th to 11th and then from 20th to ninth in race two. I was catching the top eight but time wasn’t on my side.”

Collingbourne is determined to take the positives to rounds five and six of the Renault UK Clio Cup at Thruxton in Hampshire on May 7-8.

Championship pacesetter Rivett has three wins at Thruxton to his name, the last of those coming in 2008.