Walkinshaw makes podium in Abu Dhabi on his maiden outing

Marking the 25-year-old Chipping Norton driver’s maiden experience at the wheel of an Audi R8 GT3, as well as his first ever outing with the German team, he impressed throughout the 12 hour contest to celebrate a fabulous outright and GT3 Pro class podium with Giorgio Roda and Clemens Schmid.

Ending the race – which was contested over two six-hour parts with a break of a couple of hours in between – less than 90 seconds shy of second position, Walkinshaw and his Attempto team-mates had the potential for more but contact during the seventh hour led to a luckless spin.

Undeterred, the trio produced outstanding pace and went on to claim an excellent result to put the icing on the cake of a particularly impressive year for Walkinshaw – one in which he became GT300 Vice-Champion in the Far East’s Super GT Championship just last month.

Walkinshaw said: “I’m really happy with the podium, especially considering it was my first time out in the Audi. The car took a bit of getting used to but during the race I was finally able to get to grips with it.

“Overall the race went pretty swimmingly compared to our rivals but we were spun around in the first hour of the second part of the race, which did cost us a lot of time.”