He finished Saturday’s free practice session fourth fastest, but was dealt a huge blow when his gearbox failed on the first lap of official qualifying.
Although his team rectified the problem, with only a few minutes of the session left he had no chance to get a representative lap in, and did well to set a time good enough to put him 12th on the grid, of 25 runners.
The Pau street circuit is similar to Monaco, exceptionally difficult to overtake on and where the slightest mistake is punished by the barriers all round the circuit.
But Walker quickly made progress and was in the top ten after two laps, eventually finishing in sixth place.
A brush with one of the barriers early in qualifying for race two damaged the steering.
Although it could have been put right for the race, with insufficient time in the short qualifying session Walker had no option but to drive around the problem.
Starting from 13th on the grid this time, he was the victim of someone else’s accident early on when he was unable to avoid a stray wheel, which beached him.
Rather than remove the wheel to allow Walker to continue, the marshals craned his car off the circuit, ending his race.
Confident ‘I was really pleased to carry our recent pace into my first visit to one of the most difficult tracks in the world, but we’re just not getting the results at the moment,’ Walker said.
‘But motor racing is like this sometimes, and if the pace is there I’m confident the results will come.
I’m aiming for podium places in all the 16 races still to go.’
