Cumbrian motorsport star Frank Bird had a drama-filled Bank Holiday weekend as he competed in two different events.

Firstly on Saturday, the 21-year-old competed alongside teammates Ryuichiro Tomita and Valdemar Eriksen in the Fanatec GT World Endurance Cup Europe powered by AWS 1000km race at Circuit Paul Ricard in France, but the trio's race was cut short after suspension damage to their Audi R8 LMS GT3.

After being clipped by a rival on track, Team WRT tried their best to fix the car after it was brought into pit lane, but the team ended up being forced to retire from the endurance race after the damage was deemed too extensive to repair.

On Monday, Bird then travelled to Oulton Park to compete on the Neil Howard Stages alongside co-driver Jack Morton and more drama was to strike the Cumbrian driver.

After earlier leading the event for the opening five stages, the pair had finished third on the road at the end of the final stage, but afterwards their Ford Fiesta Rally2 was excluded for a technical infringement.

Bird had dropped to fourth overall in Cheshire after he spun on stage six, with the mistake costing him 19 seconds, but he had recovered to third by the end of the final stage before the car's exclusion.

The event, which doubled up as both the opening round of the 2021 British Rally Championship as well as a round of the Motorsport News Circuit Rally Championship, also saw M-Sport driver Rhys Yates finish second overall.

Yates, also driving a Rally2-spec Fiesta, matched his best British Rally Championship finish with the result at the Cheshire circuit.

The Chesterfield driver was a regular frontrunner across the eight stages and ended the rally behind winner Sam Moffett by the tightest of margins.

Yates had also previously taken the rally lead after Bird's spin, but Moffett's time on the following test was just enough for him to snatch the lead off the M-Sport man going into the final stage of the day.

Before the final stage, the leading four drivers - Moffett, Yates, Bird and Osian Pryce - were all separated by less than 10 seconds, proving just how close the battle for the rally win was throughout the whole day of action.