Third V6 podium for Winslow.

James Winslow continued the strong start to his Formula V6 Asia championship campaign, with a third podium in four races moving him into contention for the title with half the season still to run.

Flying direct to the Sentul circuit in Indonesia from the latest round of the Kumho Tyres Australian F3 series, Winslow was confident of being on the pace at a circuit he knew well from his title-winning 2006 Asian F3 season, but problems in qualifying meant that he would line up further down the sprint race grid than anticipated.

Undeterred, the Briton moved up to fifth in the weekend's shorter event to give himself a shot at the podium in the 28-lap feature event, and made the most of work done between rounds by the Meritus team to vault himself into third place within the space of two corners.

"I had a really good start and got past Earl Bamber straight away," he revealed, "Then I managed to get through Hanss Lin at turn two. The car was much improved from the first race - the guys from Team Meritus did a fantastic job with the set-up and it was a completely different car from what we had before, much easier to drive."

It took a little longer for Winslow to hunt down the second-placed car of Aaron Lim, but a demon out-braking move on lap ten, with the Brit later on the brakes into turn five, finally saw him move up another spot, with just leader Armaan Ebrahim left ahead.

"In the first few laps, I was as quick as the guys in front," he explained, "I managed to close in on Aaron and get past him at turn five. We battled for a few laps, and I think that delayed me a little but, once I managed to break free of him, I was able to start reeling Armaan in."

A series of rapid laps saw the #88 car slash the gap to Ebrahim but, unfortunately for Winslow, time proved against him and, having got to within three seconds of the leader , the chequered flag came out to deprive the Briton of a shot at first place and a maiden win in the V6 series.

"We definitely had the pace to win," Winslow insisted, "I was catching the leader hand-over-fist in the closing stages, but it was just too big a gap to close after I got into second.

"I think that, if I had got through the traffic earlier, I would have had a better chance to challenge for the win but, with the way the weekend started, I'm happy with second. I have to say a big thank-you to Team Meritus for all their hard work this weekend, and to my sponsor Opes Prime for their support.

"I think that, once again, we've shown that we are a frontrunner in this series and, with the way the championship table looks at the moment, I think we've definitely got a shot at the title."

Despite having only contested four of the season's six races, Winslow's three podiums have helped to move him from seventh to second in the standings. The second half of the schedule gets underway at Chengdu in China in the middle of September, with another six races over the following three months for the Briton to further close the gap to overall leader Ebrahim.