THREE consistent points finishes have helped young Helensburgh rally driver Fraser Anderson into the top three in the 2018 Junior 1000 Ecosse Challenge rally championship.

Anderson and his co-driver Ian McRae finished sixth in the championship’s latest event – the Granite City Leuchars Junior Rally in Aberdeen – at the weekend.

But the duo’s haul of 25 points from the event, in which they posted a total time of 62 minutes and 27 seconds, leaves 15-year-old Anderson lying third in the overall drivers’ standings on 76 points.

That puts him within touching distance of championship leaders Johnnie Mackay and Gordon Reid and second-placed Lewis Haining and George Myatt, who have 85 and 84 points respectively after the first three rounds of the season.

Consistency has so far been key to the Burgh driver’s climb up the standings at the wheel of his Nissan Micra, after he took home 25 points from the season opener, the DCC Junior Stages at Ingliston on March 25, and another 29 from the Spring Kames Junior event four weeks later.

Anderson made his debut in the series in the the Albar Kames Junior Rally at Kames Motorsport Complex in east Ayrshire last September, impressing enough to win a novice trophy at the championship’s end-of-season prizegiving.

But in glorious Aberdeen sunshine on Saturday, there was little Anderson and McRae could do to halt the charge of Mackay and his co-driver Reid in their Suzuki Alto, who lay third after four of the event’s 11 stages, two seconds behind Haining and Myatt’s Skoda Citigo and 11 behind early leaders Andrew Blackwood and Tom Middlemiss in their Citroen C1.

Blackwood’s gearbox gave out on stage 7, however, paving the way for Mackay and Reid, who took over the lead after Blackwood’s setback and stayed there for the rest of the rally.

Haining and Myatt, from Dumfries, held on to second place in the remaining four stages, with Ollie Hunter and Tom Hynd completing the podium places in their Peugeot 107.

The Junior 1000 Ecosse Challenge is specifically aimed at young rally drivers aged from 14 to 17. All 13 drivers who started the event completed the full 11 stages; The next round of the championship is at Crail Raceway in Fife on Saturday, June 9.