Rookie racer Joshua Graham finished top of the pile during the British Kart Championship Honda Cadet final at Warden Law in Sunderland.

Graham now sits second in the overall standings ahead of the next round of the championship which takes place at the Fulbeck Kart Circuit in Lincolnshire next weekend.

Aylesford Secondary School pupil Graham, from Wouldham, is the current champion of the Bayford Meadows Kart Racing Club in Sittingbourne and races for the Swale town’s Ambition Motorsport UK.

It proved to be a good weekend for the team in the north east as Graham - who also took the top rookie trophy - was joined on the podium by Blake Ticehurst and Ewan Charman, making it a 1-2-3 for the Ambition Motorsport team.

Qualifying in ninth, Graham finished second in heat one and seventh in heat two. He made up 14 places in the pre-final, starting in 19th and knowing he needed a top-10 finish. He brought the kart home in fifth to earn himself a place in the grand final.

He quickly moved up to third in the final, racing against his team-mates as the trio jostled for victory, and it was Graham who came out victorious.

The youngster races on a Synergy Fluro Carbon chassis and the engines are supplied and tuned by RPM Racing engines and GX Tuning Store UK.

He followed that performance up with third place in a warm-up event at Fulbeck over the past weekend, ahead of the championship round there next month.

Read more: All the latest sports news in Kent