Fareham’s James Wren heads into the penultimate meeting of the Castle Combe season on Bank Holiday Monday riding the crest of a wave of confidence after a stunning performance in his last race.

Wren, who is in his first full season of Formula Ford 1600 racing, charged from 16th on the grid to finish ninth in round six of the Castle Combe Championship three weeks ago. In the process he scored his third points finish of the season in his Fareham Van Hire backed Van Diemen.

With nearly 40 cars on the grid for every round of the series, points finishes are hard to come by. Typically however, James is refusing to get complacent and has high expectations for Monday’s race. Nothing less than another points finish will suffice.

"We feel we can do it time and time again," he said. "The whole package is definitely good enough so when we don’t score points it feels like we’ve under-performed."

Wren’s small Dalmeny Racing outfit prepares the car on a shoestring budget and lacks the experience of the front-running teams, some of whom have been involved in FF1600 for over a decade. This could well be the reason for his comparatively weak qualifying performances. The Fareham-based driver is always lightning fast in the races, but often gives himself too much to do by qualifying in a lowly grid slot. Yet James modestly dismisses any suggestion of his poor qualifying form being down to anything other than his own over-anxiety.

"It’s very easy to over-drive in qualifying and actually go slower because you’re trying too hard," he explained. "We think that’s the biggest problem. I need to work on letting my driving ‘flow’ more in qualifying. It’s all down to practice and the driver’s mindset."

If Wren starts qualifying higher though, he may deprive the crowd of the spectacular overtaking moves he has been producing during his charges up the order. While the frontrunners at Combe seem incapable of overtaking without taking each other out, James has scorched through the field with decisive yet clean moves. A good example was the dive down the inside that took him past both Wayne Poole and Hugh Elliott and up to ninth place on the final lap in the last race.

"I think the passes I make tend not to be half-hearted," he said. "Also I know when I’m beaten, if the pass is not going to work then I fall back and try again because there’s no use in beating the car up just to prove a point. A lot of the crashes up at the front are due to a bit of arrogance by the drivers."

It’s hard to think of anyone in racing less arrogant than James Wren though. This time last year he had only completed a handful of races and was still dreaming of his first points finish. Now he has much higher ambitions.

"I’m personally looking to raise my game for the last few rounds," he warned. "A top six finish would be a great way to end the year. A podium finish would be a dream, but that’s probably a little out of our reach at the moment."