He won’t be celebrating his 20th birthday until next summer, but Luke Wright has already marked himself down as a great British Touring Car star of the future after just one season of racing with a roof over his head.

After showing great promise in single-seaters, but lacking funds to continue up the ladder, the Dorset teenager switched his focus to a Touring Car career. He lined up for 2011 in the Renault Clio Cup UK with the brand-new Scuderia Vittoria team, and made an instant impression.

Wright showed speed straight away, and after a hectic induction to the cut-and-thrust of Clio racing he scored two mid-summer second places, at Croft and Snetterton. When the Clio Cup UK took on the Dutch championship at Silverstone in what was billed as a battle between Europe’s finest, Wright scored a stunning pair of dominant victories in front of an enormous World Series by Renault crowd.

Not only that, but over the eight qualifying sessions for the 2011 Clio Cup UK, Luke set the fastest cumulative time of those to take part in each round – including multiple former champions and many drivers with extensive experience in the front-wheel-drive racers.

No wonder the Clio experts are tipping Wright as a favourite for the 2012 title – if he can raise the resources to compete again – and go on to a successful career in Touring Cars.

Foremost among them is ex-Clio champion Danny Buxton, co-team principal and driver coach for Scuderia Vittoria.

“It was a massively encouraging first year,” he said. “As a consequence of what he’s done this season, pretty much all the teams I’ve spoken to rate him as a favourite for the title next year.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with Luke this year, not only with the team on race weekends but also in one-to-one coaching, and the new direction in his career is really starting to pay off. His consistency is great, and hopefully we can use the winter to press on and develop – if we can do that, then he’s undoubtedly the man to beat next year.”

Wright has always excelled at sport. Educated at Millfield, he had already competed in the National Gymnastics Championships while at primary school. But one of his legs had stopped growing properly, and the chronic pain from his hips and back meant he was forced to find a new activity while the problem was corrected.

Not too far from the Wright family home in Dorset, Clay Pigeon kart track played host to the youngster’s first steps in his new sport. He instantly showed speed and fearlessness behind the wheel.

And so his path was set from that summer day in 2005, a course that initially took him through regional karting, onto the national scene and then to an international level (you can read about his achievements in the year-by-year panel).

Wright gained seven GCSEs at good grades in 2008, and after this his headmaster suggested he take a year out of education to pursue his professional racing aspirations, then move to a sixth-form college. Luke’s new college in Oxford meant he needed to leave his family to live in digs, but importantly it took him right into the heartland of the British motorsport industry.

Meanwhile, the first steps in cars were made later in 2009. He made his race debut in Formula Renault at the daunting Ahvenisto circuit in Finland, but unfortunately that race outing meant he was ineligible for the second round of the BMW Scholarship, offered by the German manufacturer to talented youngsters to contest the F1-supporting Formula BMW Europe series – Luke had already sailed through the opening round at the Valencia circuit.

Back in the UK he joined Fortec Motorsport for the Formula Renault Winter Cup, and showed strong form that boded well for a full season in FRenault UK in 2010. Sadly, the funds proved elusive, and Wright competed instead in the Formula Renault BARC ‘feeder’ series. Five podium finishes (including his first race win in cars, at Croft) were a fabulous achievement with a brand-new team, SWB Motorsport, which was running on a low budget. He then moved to another new team, MGR Motorsport, for the Winter Cup, and caused a sensation by scoring a podium finish on his debut outing in the new-spec Formula Renault, in a field richly populated by an international cast of young stars in the making.