Fareham’s James Wren came tantalisingly close to another points finish in round seven of the Castle Combe Formula Ford Championship on Bank Holiday Monday, coming home 11th despite being delayed in a first lap incident.

Wren has made great strides forward in his first full season of car racing. Driving a Fareham Van Hire-backed Van Diemen, he has traditionally struggled in qualifying but charged up the order in the race. This feisty style has so far brought him three points finishes in 2000, and another such result looked to be on the cards after he ended qualifying in a career-best 14th position.

"We’re gradually getting faster," he said. "When you’re this close to the pace, it gets a lot harder to find those last few fractions of a second, but we’re still moving forward."

The start was a shambles. The normal procedure is for the marshals to hold out a ‘5 Seconds To Go’ board when the grid is formed up ready for the start. However, on this occasion they neglected to do so and the lights turned straight from red to green while half the field was still looking for the ‘Five Second Board.’ James was on the ball however and made a fantastic start, vaulting up the order to run ninth as the field streamed into Quarry for the first time. But with several fancied runners already trying to fight back after being wrong-footed at the start, a certain degree of chaos was inevitable.

"Coming down to the Esses I had Hugh Elliott interlocking wheels with me on one side and Kristian Ducros doing the same on the other," James recalled. "I was edging Hugh over when some other guy went into a spin. Then Jon Adlam lost it and went down the escape road too. And with Kristian spinning as well by now on one side of me, and Hugh still alongside me, the corner was getting a bit crowded! I just had to slow down and let them sort it out because there was no room for me to do anything else."

Frustratingly the incident had dropped Wren back down to 13th place. He spent the remainder of the race fighting with Adlam and Ian Riley en route to a mildly frustrating 11th place finish.

"Apart from the fact that we avoided all the accidents and didn’t damage the car, the most positive thing was our speed in the race," James said. "Even with the incident on the first lap we were only 15s behind Paul Barnes, the winner, at the end. He’s an experienced driver, running with a much bigger budget than us, and a very experienced team. To be within 15s of him after ten laps really isn’t bad at this stage is it?"

It certainly isn’t. It also says much for the progress of Wren and his small Dalmeny Racing team that finishing 11th out of nearly 40 cars is a disappointment for them. That 15s gap between James and race victory is only going to shrink, and quickly too.