Fareham’s James Wren took another points finish in round four of the Castle Combe Formula Ford 1600 Championship on Bank Holiday Monday after another charging drive from a lowly grid position.

Wren’s ninth place in the season opener was the first time in his short career that he had scored championship points. 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.

Monday’s race was a similar story, Wren only 18th on the 32-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 in the form of a destructive collision in the lead pack meant that James was soon up to ninth place.

As well as being in a points scoring position, Wren was also on the tail of a fraught battle for sixth place between Neil Barnett, Ian Riley and Wayne Poole. Better still, he was harrying his more experienced rivals and clearly had the potential to go quicker than any of them, a fact he proved by setting the sixth quickest lap of the race.

"Sixth place was definitely possible, then my chances were ruined by the selfishness of another driver," James explained. "We were lapping this guy when his gearbox broke, but he couldn’t decide whether or not to pull off the track and park so he was dawdling around in the middle of the road trying to make his mind up. I was the one who got caught behind him and it cost me at least five seconds. I was gaining on the battle ahead again but I didn’t have time to make up those last few car lengths and had to settle for ninth."

In addition to scoring his second points of 2000, James was also delighted to have been able to run with some of the top drivers, especially seeing as he was the one putting them under pressure.

"This is the first time I’ve really been able to not only keep up with those guys, but also to put them under real pressure," he said. "I was actually going quicker than people like Neil Barnett and Wayne Poole, the real top drivers in the series. It wasn’t so long ago that those guys were leaving me for dust, but I could really hassle them today.

"I certainly got helped out by the accidents ahead, but I still had to do a lot of racing to get from 18th to ninth. I kept my nose clean, did some good lap times and finished in the right half of the pack, so all in all I’m really pleased. It’s turning into a really good season for us."