Mitch Gilbert was frustrated not to be more competitive after a disappointing weekend in the GP3 Series.

The Prince Lubricants-sponsored Carlin driver finished 11th in both races at Spa, but felt higher places were there for the taking.

A lack of pace in qualifying left the ADD Motorsports-supported driver too far back to make any kind of impact.

But the Australian racer, now living in Twickenham, still believes he is edging ever closer to a weekend going all his way.

He said: “It’s the story of the season. There are really good moments and bad moments, but no consistency.

“We weren’t competitive in qualifying and it leaves you with too much to do in the races.”

Despite usually being one of the most competitive in practice, Gilbert found himself in the bottom 10 this time round.

The team looked into the problem overnight, but things did not improve in time for qualifying where the driver finished 15th – with his worst position of the season.

Things improved in the first race, with Mitch feeling competitive again and managing to get up to tenth in the first lap.

But he was back to 15th when another driver tried to overtake him forcing them both to slow down and lose their position.

In a topsy-turvy race, he managed to get back up near 10th.

Unfortunately, this did not last long as another driver’s wheels locked as he tried to overtake, forcing Gilbert to take drastic action to avoid being hit and leaving him losing places again.

He managed to get back up to 11th by the end of the race, but knew he could have been in a much better position if not for the set-backs.

The second race got off to the worse possible start when a clutch problem allowed other drivers to overtake off the line.

Gilbert managed to get back up to ninth, but did not have the pace to capitalise further and had to make do with another 11th place finish at the end.

He said: “I felt pretty hard done by this weekend. From where we were in qualifying, I thought we were quite quick in the first race, but things just didn’t go our way.

“There’s still four weekends left to improve. Next up is Monza which is a special circuit, so hopefully I can turn things around here and put in a more complete performance.”

The Series moves on to Monza on September 4.