After another charging drive from a lowly grid position Fareham’s James Wren scorched through the field to take 13th place despite a troubled qualifying session in the fifth round of the Castle Combe Formula Ford 1600 Championship.

Wren’s 2000 season has been going well, however poor qualifying performances were still hampering him, James leaving himself too much to do in the short sprint races by starting well down the field in his Fareham Van Hire-backed Van Diemen.

Sunday’s race was a similar story, Wren only 19th on the 36-car grid in qualifying after a rival dropped oil around the circuit and rendered most of the session useless. Nevertheless, a combination of his usual lightning start, an aggressive approach to the early laps and a little help from Lady Luck meant that James was soon working his way up the order.

Wren was also on the tail of some fraught battles, but he was harrying his more experienced rivals and clearly had the potential to go quicker than any of them. Wren has again shown his ability to put in the fast laps and pass cars when the opportunity arises. Wren managed to make his way up to 13th place by lap 8, then due to a crash by another competitor, a full course yellow and a safety car situation was in force for the majority of the rest of the race. This gave the competitors no more real chances for passing. Wren finished 14.70 seconds behind the leader and in 13th place, having again set a faster lap in the race than in qualifying.

"If we’d been that quick in qualifying then we would have started about ten places further up," James admitted. "But that was quite an interesting race after all. We just lost too much time fighting with the slower cars, otherwise it was much better than this morning."

"We’re definitely moving in the right direction and making progress. We just need to work on qualifying so I don’t keep giving myself too much to do in the races."

A problem with the tyres was diagnosed after the race a problem that could be solved in time for the next race. That is easier said than done however, for Wren’s tight budget means that he cannot afford to test as regularly as the frontrunners and lavish money on tyres. Most of the top drivers spend a full day at the circuit practising immediately before the meeting, allowing them to fine tune their cars in advance, whereas James’ finances will not stretch that far, forcing him to rely on educated guesswork for a qualifying set-up. As his spectacular charges up the order in the first half of this year has proved, Wren lacks nothing in speed and aggression, he just needs more luck, experience and sponsorship.