DROITWICH rider Chris Jones' frustrating start to the British 125GP Championship continued on Sunday.

Jones, aged 14, failed to finish the third round at the Leicestershire circuit after colliding with Bradley Smith on the 14th lap.

This means that the Droitwich Spa High School pupil had endured a nightmare start to the competitive career with Honda - failing to finish the first three rounds of the championship.

Jones returned to the track where he impressed Honda's panel of judges at the selection day in 2004 in confident form.

Despite failing to finish the first two rounds the Droitwich flyer had been in points positions before misfortune struck.

However, he had to settle for fifth on the grid at Mallory when he recorded a time on 55.025 seconds in qualifying.

Jones though made a quick start, moving up a place to fourth on the first turn.

The safety car came out after an accident on Edwina's chicane and Jones remained in fourth until the race resumed.

However, he was slapped with a 20-second penalty after the rider in front of him ran wide and allowed Jones to overtake him.

Despite briefly challenging race leader Christian Elkin the penalty saw him slip to 14th place.

Disaster struck as Jones tried to battle his way back into a points position, when he collided with Smith.

Jones said: "I'm really annoyed with myself after what happened with the pace car.

"It was my mistake. However, I got my head down and tried to make amends by battling for the lead with Elkin. The crash was desperately unlucky.

"The rider in front of me missed a gear, and as I tried to avoid him, Smith collided with me."