Boy racers tend to get a fairly bad press don’t they? Look at them, sitting at the traffic lights in their eye-wateringly modified Citroen Saxos that are so gaudy even Liberace wouldn’t nip to the shops in one while hip-hop thumps from the stereo and the exhaust roars and sputters like a blast furnace on the cusp of a malfunction.

Ross Martin is a boy racer but he doesn’t fall into that stereotype of souped up bangers, unnecessary acceleration and ear-shatteringly awful music. This boy racer is certainly one to keep an eye on; a level-headed, ambitious, talented young man whose career is hurtling along at the kind of rate that would set off a speed camera.

At just 16, Martin is enjoying his life in the fast lane. Last season, he conquered all in the Formula Kart Stars series, winning seven of the 10 races he competed in en route to topping the championship table and joining a roll of honour that includes Lewis Hamilton and Paul Di Resta. Those eye-catching performances have been rewarded with a fully-funded campaign in the MSA Formula Championship in which he makes the sizeable leap from a kart to a Formula Four car with the renowned Fortec Motorsport team, a stable that has nurtured the likes of Juan Pablo Montoya and currently has 19-year-old Pietro Fittipaldi, grandson of the Brazilian great Emerson, among its young talents.

“These cars can do maybe 127 to 130 mph compared to the karts that were reaching 80,” noted the teenager from Gartocharn. Martin has wasted no time in getting his foot to the floor. “Have I pushed the car to the limit? Och aye,” he said with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm after another week of testing and trials ahead of the season-opening meeting at Brands Hatch next weekend. In the nose-to-tail, wheel-to-wheel cut-and-thrust of motorsport, pushing to the limit and beyond is what separates the best from the rest and Martin’s experiences in the fertile breeding ground of the karting scene in recent years has helped to forge the racing instincts and sharpen the competitive edge. “My parents probably get more nervous than I do,” added Martin, who will always be grateful for the family funding that has been provided over the last six years of his development. “My mum came to watch me at Oulton Park for a test one time. It was wet and I was giving it everything and she got a bit worried. She was saying ‘can’t you take it a bit easier?,’ but in racing, you can’t. There will be somebody willing to go that bit faster and be that bit braver. If you’re not fast you don’t win.”

In 2016, the cars will be more powerful, the speeds will be faster and the competition will be even more robust. It’s a lot to take in but, like a hair-raising birl round a racing circuit, there’s not a lot of time to think about it. “It costs nearly a quarter of a million pounds for a season and getting funding to do this for a year is a huge opportunity,” added Martin. "There are plenty of nerves but I have a lot of expectations of myself . I want to win the championship and I have to be ambitious.”

The Balfron High School pupil has adapted well to his new surroundings and is clearly enjoying the step up. “It’s been quite an eye-opener,” he admitted. “This week, for instance, the team turned up with an artic truck, we had a van load of drivers, we had five cars out there and we even had the motor homes. It was the full works, a real professional outfit. At Brands Hatch next week, we’ll do some media and some autographs … all the glamorous things.”

Ever since he louped into a kart while on holiday in Cyprus as a seven-year-old, Martin has been driven to follow this driving dream. “I wasn’t one for playing football in the garden or stuff like that,” he said. “I was always out riding my quad bike or kicking about among the old tractors in the field. I always just liked getting my hands dirty and cars fascinated me. I remember getting in to that kart on holiday. It was quite a big and I was pretty small but I just jumped in. The guy running the place was pretty impressed by me. I got home, researched it all on the internet and eventually got involved with the West of Scotland Kart Club in Larkhall. I went to the last race weekend of the championship a few years ago where I bought all the gear, the suit and the helmet and then dad put a deposit down on my first go kart. It’s been a huge financial commitment. It takes a lot out of the family and it’s been six years of this but hopefully it will be worth it.”

Of course, Martin didn’t have to look far for inspiration. A certain John Young Stewart – or Sir Jackie to all and sundry – hailed from Milton, just a few miles from Martin’s West Dunbartonshire home. “Every time I travelled down south to race, I would pass Sir Jackie’s old garage and his old house," said Martin. “It’s amazing where he got to and what he achieved from there. I still prefer watching the old era of motor racing compared to the modern day stuff. Watching footage of Sir Jackie going round the Nurburgring in his old Lotus? Now that’s motor racing.”

Stewart, the Flying Scot who won a trio of Formula One world championship’s during that swashbuckling, glamorous yet deadly era, knew every nook and crannie of his car with a forensic attention to detail and would often compare his man-made machine to the fairer sex. “It’s very sensitive, it’s very nervous,” he once said. “It’s very highly strung, sometimes it responds very nicely, sometimes it responds very viciously. To get the best out of it you have to coax it and almost caress it.”

Martin may not be ready to deliver such flooery phraseology just yet but he is already enamoured by his new car and has been wooed by its EcoBoost engine, homologated carbon monocoque, six-speed paddle shift gearbox and two-piston calliper brakes. It sounds quite the catch eh?

“I love getting to know the car,” he enthused. “This one is a completely different tool to what I’ve been used to. But I’ve been talking a lot to the mechanics and getting inside the mechanisms and just understanding how it all works. It’s been fascinating. This set up is totally different from karts and it’s a much bigger car. That takes some getting used to. I’ve had a few spins during testing but at least I’ve managed to keep it out of the tyre wall.”

A spin, a shunt, a flip or a dunt are all part and parcel of this risky business. Fernando Alonso’s terrifying impact during last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, for instance, was enough to give anyone a shuddering sense of the heebie-jeebies.

“Watching that live on the television, you do get a bit scared but you can’t dwell on things like that and at any level of racing, accidents happen,” said Martin. “Luckily, I’ve managed to avoid anything major so far. In karting, a lot of people would roll their karts but I never did that either. I’ve had one or two shunts that have given me a scare, though.”

When Martin rolls up to the grid next weekend for the season-opener at Brands Hatch it will be a giddy mix of emotions he will be feeling. The MSA Formula Championship is the sole single seater support series to the British Touring Car Championship and the various thrills and spills will be played out in front of the sizeable crowds that follow the UK’s premier motorsport package.

“I can’t wait,” he said. “Karting didn’t have many spectators but this series brings a lot of interest. It is a bit of a cliché but I am living the dream. You get a lot of boys who play football but not many get the chance to play for the clubs they loved or play at the great grounds. I’ve raced round Silverstone, Brands Hatch, all the circuits that you associate with motor racing. This is my dream. It’s going to be exciting and nervous on that grid for my first race. I’m not sure how you prepare yourself for that. Usually the nerves go when the engine starts. We’ll see.”

Mentored by his highly-respected and extremely successful countryman, Allan McNish, Martin is fortunate that he can draw on the pearls of wisdom from a number of tartan track stars including David Coulthard. “Allan has pointed me in the right direction and always just tells me to enjoy the moment,” he said.

Before the green light signals go next weekend, Martin has more humdrum matters to attend to. “I’ve got a PE exam at school this coming week so I’ll have to get back to the books,” added the young Scot. He’s also digging out his Highway Code in preparation for a driving test once he turns 17 in November. He may be able to thunder round Silverstone, Donington or Brands Hatch at a furious lick but he’s still got that mirror, signal, manoeuvre protocol to adhere to. “I’m not sure what the instructor will do when I tell him I’m a boy racer,” Martin chuckled.