Rising star Harry King retained his hopes of securing a maiden Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup title with a battling drive to fourth place at Spa-Francorchamps.

Harry headed for the famous Belgian circuit on the back of a dominant display at the Hungaroring a week earlier, where he had powered his BWT Lechner Racing-run car to a second race win of the season.

That victory had allowed Harry to close in on championship-leading team-mate Bastian Buus in the standings, and he looked set to carry his fine form into the fifth event of the season as he topped the times in official practice.

Post-session however, Harry’s chances of battling for a third win of the season took a huge hit when he was one of a number of drivers handed a five-place grid penalty for exceeding track limits; a decision made all the more difficult to stomach when each of the 31 cars present had lost lap times in practice for the same issue.

The penalty would only make Harry more determined for the remainder of the weekend, and qualifying saw him set the third-best time - meaning eighth on the grid for the race when his penalty was applied.

An impressive opening lap when the lights went out saw Harry quickly making up places, with a fine move on Alessandro Ghiretti being the highlight as the Briton climbed to fifth spot.

Heading into lap three, Harry saw his chance to make a move on Marvin Klein for fourth and although his rival tried to get the cutback as the pair came out of turn one, Harry powered through going into Eau Rouge to grab the position.

By this point, Harry was more than a second away from the podium places but a number of quick laps allowed him to close in on Dorian Boccolacci as the race headed towards the closing stages.

As rain started to fall with three laps to go, Harry was pushing hard to try and find a way ahead of the Frenchman but deteriorating track conditions and the fact that the whole field was running on slick tyres saw the safety car deployed and the race then red-flagged for safety reasons.

It meant Harry had to settle for fourth place, and it leaves him 13 points behind Buus going into the next meeting at Zandvoort - which will be the only double-header event of the season.

"It was a real shame to get the penalty following practice, as it really hampered our chances of pushing for a second successive win," he said. "Obviously it would have good to secure 'pole' in qualifying but we didn’t quite have the pace on our second run in the session, although third fastest was still a decent result.

"From P8, I knew we had the pace to make up places and a strong start and some solid laps early on allowed me to move up into fourth place. I did my best to try and get ahead of Dorian and had a bit of a moment at one stage when the rain started to come down, but unfortunately, I just couldn’t find a way through.

"We’ve still been able to score some solid points and have retained second in the standings, with focus now turning to a big weekend at Zandvoort with the double-header event."