Australian motorsport has had its share of international success stories this year.

There's been Mark Webber beating his more fancied teammate in Formula One, Toowoomba's Will Power's brilliance in America's IndyCar series, Perth's Daniel Ricciardo winning the major support race at the Monaco Grand Prix and being the F1 reserve driver for the now mighty Red Bull team.

The sport has had its other big stories too, like the Ferrari team orders row at the German GP which is the subject of a World Motor Sport Council hearing this week.

And at home there's been the success of Ford in the face of the expected Holden walkover in the V8 Supercar Championship, which begins its endurance rounds this weekend at Victoria's Phillip Island after a nine-week break.

But almost out of sight a fairytale has been unfolding - the tale of 20-year-old Scott Pye.

Born in Adelaide, Pye began karting at seven, spent most of his teens at Mt Gambier and was based briefly in Melbourne before venturing to England, where he's won 11 of 20 races in the British Formula Ford Championship.

While AFL club Collingwood, and even its enemies, sense it's the season of the Pie, motorsport is in a year of a hot Pye, too.

The British Formula Ford Championship has a reputation as one of the most competitive in world motorsport.

The cars are little 1600cc open-wheelers, without any aerodynamic wings and no slick tyres. Driving fastest without those aids requires sheer talent.

Young drivers aspiring to F1 have come from around the world for four decades now to start at this bottom rung of the ladder to GP racing.

Its list of champions includes the legendary Ayrton Senna and Jenson Button, who became world champions, Eddie Irvine, who almost did, and Aussies Russell Ingall and James Courtney - stars in V8 Supercars these days. Indeed, Courtney is that championship's leader.

Pye has had a rough road just to get this far.

He was a passenger in a terrible road accident when a car hit a tree.

Early last year he lost to lung cancer the father who had driven him far and wide around Australia to race karts and prepared his machines.

Pye's also had a couple of lucky breaks.

He was chosen in the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport's "Rising Stars" program and now has the support of the Australian Motor Sport Foundation.

He also met and impressed Roland Dane, the powerful and persuasive head of Triple Eight Race Engineering, which builds the V8 Supercars of Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes as well as Courtney's.

Dane gives Pye financial support, strategic direction and a fallback position in case his F1 dream doesn't come true.

In Europe Pye is managed by Perry McCarthy, who as a race driver got very close to the GP grid but is better known as the original Stig, evaluating high-performance cars on the BBC's Top Gear TV program.

It was McCarthy - also the author of Flat Out, Flat Broke - Formula One the Hard Way - who made contact with Pye when he heard of the severity of his injuries from the road crash.

They clicked, and another key bond in the youngster's climb was formed.

Another had been with Allan Scott, the late Mt Gambier transport tycoon who employed his father and supported the family in its karting pursuits - as well as, more famously, the Port Adelaide footy club and was the target of coach Mark Williams' notorious "You were wrong" venom on the premiership dais.

Pye races in Britain for Jamun, the most successful team in the Formula Ford series in recent years.

One of his teammates is Josh Hill, a son of 1996 F1 world champion Damon Hill.

Pye won two of last weekend's three races at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent. In the other one he was just 0.07 seconds behind Hill at the chequered flag.

Apart from his string of wins, and taking the lead that had been held since the start of the season in April by Brit Scott Malvern, Pye has qualified 11 times on pole position.

Five races remain in the championship - three at Donington Park on September 18-19 and two more at Brands Hatch on September 25-26.

Pye could yet top the record 14 wins of 2007 champion Callum McLeod.

"My plan is just to keep banging in the wins," Pye said as he prepared for a day's testing.

"I'm very focused on getting to F1."

The next step on that ladder is the British Formula Three Championship, won last year by Ricciardo, who incidentally scored his third victory in the World Series by Renault last weekend at Germany's Hockenheim and is in strong contention for that title.

Mark Webber, vying with Lewis Hamilton for this year's F1 crown with six races to go, the first of them this weekend's Italian GP, is a role model for Pye - even more so for his dedication and perseverance than his racecraft.

Pye has met Webber a couple of times, but in Australia rather than in Britain.

He's looking forward to coming across Webber again, mainly just for a few words of advice.

Webber already has hinted that, at 34, next year may be his last in F1.

Ricciardo is perfectly placed to be Australia's next GP driver, within a year or two.

Pye is still a long way back down the track, yet to be trialed even in a car with wings and slicks, but he's rapidly come on the radar.

He's determined, mature, articulate, marketable, focused, and - most of all - obviously very, very fast.