Banbury's Will Bratt salvaged a pair of points finishes during the third and fourth rounds of the FIA Formula 2 Championship at Magny-Cours.

Despite significant set-up problems with his car, the 23-year-old finished eighth and seventh respectively in the two races at the French circuit.

The weekend’s results leave him in seventh place on 28 points, with Christopher Zanella leading the way on 71.

Qualifying for round three didn’t go to plan for Bratt due to problems with traffic, which meant he lined up for the first race in eighth on the grid.

Rain ahead of the race left the track damp, and despite climbing into the top five, he had serious grip issues and slipped down the field to finish eighth with Zanella taking the chequered flag.

Round four qualifying on Sunday proved to be every bit as frustrating as the previous day, but for different reasons.

This time the lap on which Bratt utilised his ‘boost’ system, which gives competitors several shots of horsepower increase for a set period, failed to work out and he slipped from an almost certain second row start to seventh.

When the race got under way, the Banbury driver didn’t make the best of starts and became bottled up behind Ramon Pineiro in eighth position until well after halfway.

Finally overtaking the Spaniard on lap 15, Bratt lapped as the quickest driver over the remaining nine laps, but was unable to just catch compatriot Jon Lancaster as Zanella made it a double on the day.

“It was a weekend with plenty of promise, but unfortunately just one of those where things go against you,” he commented.

“We definitely had a fundamental problem with the set-up in the wet conditions on Saturday as the car was pretty un-driveable.

“Qualifying was the issue on Sunday, had we started where we should have on the first two rows we definitely had the pace to challenge.”