WHILE many school kids spend their weekends gaming, online or slogging through homework, Tom Delaney has a different hobby.

The 15-year-old, from Droitwich, swaps exercise books for pace notes as he spends his free time at the wheel of a rally car.

Delaney, who goes to Droitwich Spa High School, is embarking on a campaign in the Formula 1000 rally series, having already completed four rallies, and is about to spend a sizeable chunk of the Christmas holidays helping his father Dominic prepare his one-litre Suzuki Alto for the start of the 2015 season.

The Delaney family has a rich motorsport heritage; Dominic used to run Peugeot 205s in rallies in the 1980s and was, for many years, a key member of the extremely successful Mitsubishi Ralliart rally team, which won one manufacturer and four driver titles with Tommi Makinen in the FIA World Rally Championship.

Tom has learned extremely quickly during the four events he has contested in 2014, racking up four finishes from four starts.

This year was supposed to feature just two rallies to get him into the car to see what he was capable of, with the aim of challenging for the championship in 2016.

However, this soon expanded to four events, forming part of the 2014 Formula 1000 series, as his pace and understanding increased with every mile.

At the start of the season, in his first event, he was approximately three seconds per stage mile slower than the leading drivers in the series.

By the end of the fourth event, this deficit was down to less than one second.

Tom will also attend the renowned John Haughland Winter Rally School in Norway, where he will undergo tuition on the frozen Scandinavian lakes.

He said: “I have had a great time starting rallying this year. I’m in my second year of GCSEs and that has to be the most important thing.

“But these four events have gone really well and I’m really keen to get more experience and some proper tuition to see what we can do next year.”