Jon Lancaster collided with the back of rival Jean-Karl Vernay’s car as the pair were battling on Saturday

The Formula Three racer collided with the back of rival Jean-Karl Vernay’s car as the pair were battling on Saturday.

Trackside’s Keith Collantine looks at a lucky escape for one of Britain’s up-and-coming young drivers.

Jon Lancaster is only in his second year of racing cars.

But his first appearance in the Formula Three Euro Series ended in disaster when he suffered this enormous crash.

Incredibly the 19 year-old from Leeds suffered only light injuries despite smashing to the ground upside down, skidding upside down for several hundred metres, then flipping the right way up again.

Marshals extracted Lancaster from the car with great care as there were fears at first he might have injured his back.

But a check-up found he only bruising to his left leg. Unfortunately that was enough to keep him from joining in Sunday’s race.

He said: “I'd like to be able to just dust myself off and get back in the car, but I can't put enough pressure on my left leg so I wouldn't be able to brake properly.”

Lancaster described the moments leading up to his collision with Vernay. He said: “I was close enough that if he moved back to the right to take the normal line I would go for the inside, or if he didn't I'd just follow him round the corner.

“But before we got there he braked a lot earlier than I was expecting and there was no time for me to react.”

Lancaster sat out the second race but said he was confident he had the speed to race at the front of the pack.

He races for the ART team that took Lewis Hamilton to the F3 Euro Series championship in 2005 (in its previous guide ASM) as well as fellow Briton Paul di Resta in 2006.