A TEENAGE rookie racing driver from Bromyard with ambitions of standing on the podium alongside the likes of Lewis Hamilton appeared on Dragons’ Den last night.

Eighteen-year-old Robert Hall and his dad David, who himself used to race alongside the likes of Eddie Irvine in Formula Ford, put forward a proposition to five of Britain’s most successful businesspeople on the popular BBC2 television series.

They hoped to get £50,000 from either Peter Jones, Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden, Duncan Bannatyne or James Caan in exchange for 40 per cent of any winnings the former Tenbury High School pupil picked up over the next 10 years.

Robert, who drives in Formula Ford – an entry-level series to top-level motor racing – and who became the youngest person to win the Young Driver of the Year award last year after finishing second in the the Castle Combe championship, said he wanted the Dragons’ contacts to tap into big-name companies for sponsorship rather than their money alone.

On the show last night Peter Jones showed an interest in the idea when he said: “I think you have been really creative. I’m surprised at the amount you are looking to give away but clearly you want to get somewhere.”

He said he could see the opportunity of using Robert Hall as part of Red Letter Days – a company that provides adventure and activity gifts he co-owns with fellow Dragon Theo Paphitis, but he was not so keen on the idea.

As a result the father-and-son team left empty-handed, but speaking to your Worcester News Robert, who started racing karts aged eight, said he thought appearing on the programme has not done him any harm.

“It was a fantastic experience to go down there, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, because you’re never going to go back on,” he said. “It was a bit daunting and we tried our best to put our point across but they didn’t quite understand where we were coming from. That was probably our fault because we didn’t put it across right. But we said you’re always going to gain from going on the show so we just took it as it came.”

Robert, who works for his dad at Bromyard Tyres, said he believed he is good enough to become a Formula One racing driver but needs financial help at this point in his career to meet the £150,000 annual running cost of entering the national Formula Ford championship.