The 19-year old karting star was hampered by ruptured tendons in his hand, sustained after a high-speed accident during testing for the British Super 1 Championship last month.

In qualifying, the Ribchester driver could only record the 34th fastest time.

In his first heat, he started from 21st on the grid and clawed his way up to 16th at the finish.

In his next race, he went two places higher to finish 14th – and was beginning to believe that his initial prediction of a top 15 place was looking good.

Starting Sunday's finals alongside five-time World Champion Davide Fore further reflected just how tough the competition had been – and things were not about to improve!

"I started in 21st place, but my rear hubs started to move on the axle and I dropped to 27th. Before that happened I'd got up to 16th place, and was looking pretty good to go further up the order."

This meant that Walker started the second final from the 14th row of the grid – just a handful of places off the back.

One of those drivers desperate to move forward from the rear was Frenchman Anthony Abbasse, who was clearly in no mood to take prisoners and ran Walker off the road.

Rejoining in 28th place, and with no chance of finishing in the points, Walker reeled out the remaining laps using the track time as a test session.

"It was a bit of an up and down weekend really. My wrist is still fairly sore and that made steering through the trickier corners quite painful and difficult.

Bloodied but unbowed, Walke returns to domestic race action at PF in Lincolnshire.