The former Stamford School pupil fought back superbly into an eighth place finish after a lap one incident caused by one of his Meritus team-mates, all after Sims had qualified third fastest on Saturday afternoon.

Rejoining the encounter stone last from more than 20 competitors, the 20-year-old was in stunning form and was by far the quickest driver on track as he scythed his way through the order to overtake an average of two cars per lap.

After just seven laps, Sims was up into seventh place and absolutely flying as he became the only driver to lap under the two minute 30-second mark with a time of 2min 29.746sec (91.42mph) – a full four-tenths of a second quicker than anyone.

Sims set quickest sectors and fastest laps and was on course to climb into the top four before the finish had the encounter run to its planned duration of 10 laps.

However, he was classified eighth as the result was declared following just six laps due an accident which caused red flags.

Sims explained: "At the first true right-hander, under braking, my team-mate shot down the inside but totally outbraked himself and went straight into the wall.

"As I was on the outside, I had nowhere to go and had to turn around and rejoin in last place after everyone else had gone through. That definitely cost us the chance of fighting for the win.

"We were very quick so it's such a shame that happened as I'm confident the win was a real possibility, certainly a podium was there for the taking.

"Even with the first lap incident, had the race run its full distance we'd have probably ended up fourth."

Although rightly disappointed with the lap one incident which totally ruined his chances of a very likely race win on his Macau debut, Sims' reason for taking part in the Pacific Formula BMW encounter was to gain vital experience for a potential return to Macau in 2009 as part of the headline Formula 3 Grand Prix.

He added: "I was very disappointed with how the race started, but you have to take the positives from everything and to lap so much quicker than everyone else and to gain two places a lap was great and very enjoyable.

"The main point of taking part in the BMW race this weekend was to gain experience of Macau so we achieved that aim.

"Macau is fantastic. You always have to race with maximum concentration, but Macau takes you to another level, it's an amazing place and one where you can't make any mistakes whatsoever which, thankfully, I didn't. It was an incredible experience to race there, it's a mega track."

Having only experienced a Formula BMW car for the first time at the Sepang Formula One Circuit in Malaysia last week, Sims headed into pre-event Macau testing last Thursday with a huge challenge on his hands but ended up third fastest.

Qualifying on Saturday produced a similar result with Sims setting the fastest lap until a yellow flag delayed him.

He was only able to complete three laps in total due to a number of accidents causing yellow flags on each tour and ended up third on the grid.