British GT driver Hunter Abbott was lucky to escape unhurt on Saturday when his Ginetta G50 was involved in a horrific smash at Oulton Park, 10 minutes into the first race of the season.

His car left the track at the Cascades bend on the Cheshire circuit, hurtling into the barrier and catching fire.

As the flames engulfed the stricken Ginetta and its driver, a team of dedicated volunteers was on hand to help.

One of them, incident officer Steve Roberts, is from Wrexham, and was among the first on the scene of the crash, applying his experience and commitment to help Abbott from the wreckage.

Steve said: "As soon as he went off we knew it was going to be big.

"After the car flipped over, two marshals went up to it with fire extinguishers, whilst three others from the marshals' post at Cascades also attended.

"When it was safe we ran down the hill to help them, but it was difficult to see with all the smoke, fumes and powder. The drivers' door was stuck shut and it was hard to see if he was still in there, but thankfully he was all right."

Although Steve has been a marshal for more than five years, some of Oulton Park's volunteers are much newer to the role.

In fact Steve's friend, Paul Davies, was marshalling for the very first time when the accident happened, while two others were also new to the post.

Steve said: "Since I started marshalling in 2002, I've only attended two fires and they were not on the same scale. It's not that common to have spontaneous car fires but the impact on Hunter's car caused the fuel lines to rupture. It was hard to see the source because of the bent metalwork but we managed to put it out efficiently.

"The whole team handled the situation brilliantly, they coped extremely well. We had a training day at Oulton Park in February and all the marshals put what they had learnt into practice – everyone knew exactly what to do. I would like to thank everyone for doing a fantastic job, including the fire support and rescue units."

Jonathan Palmer, chief executive of MotorSport Vision, which runs Oulton Park, said he would like to thank all marshals, including those who attended the incident at Oulton Park last weekend, for their voluntary efforts and continued hard work at the company's circuits.