Alastair Boulton has been competing in motor sport for the best part of two decades and his dedication has recently been rewarded with his first international podium.

The 44-year-old, who has been racing since 2001 primarily on the UK club circuit with varying levels of success, enjoyed a class win at Spa-Francorchamps in the Ardennes Forest, Belgium.

The chief engineer from Apperley was driving a Radical SR3 sports prototype in the Dutch GT & Prototype challenge as part of the Manchester-based VR Motorsport Team.

“I started racing with VR Motorsport in 2016 after we met through the 750 Motor Club’s RGB Championship,” Boulton said.

RGB stands for Road Going Bike engined cars – lightweight open top sportscars fitted with high revving superbike engines.

Boulton continued: “I’d been in RGB for 10 years, taking the championship win back in 2010 and numerous class wins since then but by the end of 2016 I wanted to try something different.”

Fortunately VR Motorsport were thinking along the same lines as Boulton – they wanted to compete at semi-pro level with a team of up and coming amateurs.

“Last year was our first on the international circuit, taking in iconic circuits such as Spa, Zandvoort, Zolder and Assen,” said Boulton.

“VR had purchased a Praga R1T which is a fully carbon fibre sports car from Slovakia developed for the feeder Le Mans class known as ‘CN’.

“It was much quicker than anything I’d driven before with 400bhp and weighing only 700kg.”

The races in the Dutch series are one hour long with driver changes allowed so through the season four drivers got to try their hand with the Praga.

“Being a new car we did struggle for reliability and simply getting to grips with it but ended the year second in class with a win and several podium finishes,” added Boulton.

For 2018 the team have expanded and at Spa they were running three cars – the Praga, a Norma and the Radical.

“I’d never driven a Radical before so it was a good opportunity to try something new – it is a great car to drive and when the rain came down for the race I was glad I was in a car I had confidence in,” Boulton said.

Boulton has a busy year coming up. He will be competing in a Jedi single-seater at Cadwell Park at the start of June before going over to Zandvoort in Holland with the Radical as a support race to the German Touring Cars (DTM) in July, driving the Praga at Carfest North – in support of Children in Need – before heading back to Spa in September.