Fareham’s James Wren took part in a very special Formula Ford 1600 race on Spring Bank Holiday Monday, the Dalmeny Racing driver competing on the world-famous Silverstone Grand Prix track as part of the British Racing Drivers’ Club 75th anniversary celebrations.

Outside of Formula One’s British Grand Prix and its’ associated support races, there is very little activity on Silverstone’s full 3.1-mile GP circuit during the season. For the BRDC 75th anniversary celebration meeting, England’s massed ranks of FF1600 racers were invited to take part in a special one-off race on the country’s best known track, joining an elite bill headed by the British Formula Three championship and the prestigious British Empire Trophy race for GT sportscars. Fittingly for a category renowned as one of the best examples of full-blooded, wheel-to-wheel motor racing, the FFord race was the spectacular curtain-closing finale early on Monday evening. This was James Wren’s first visit to a track other than Castle Combe for some years, and with his budget not extending to testing, his pre-race experience of some of Britain’s most challenging corners was confined to the short qualifying session. He still had time to be impressed however:

“I honestly think this must be one of the best circuits in the world,” he enthused. “It’s so wide, there’s space to go side-by-side everywhere and there’s so much run-off area I really can’t see how you’d manage to hit the barriers in places! There are corners where you just have to put your foot right to the floor and hang onto the car in a FFord, and other places where you can really play with the racing line and find a lot of time by trying different things. The meeting was organised very impressively too, we actually had the driver’s briefing in a hospitality suite as opposed to the outdoor gatherings we have at Castle Combe!”

For all the extra space at Silverstone, James still managed to hinder his qualifying efforts by clipping a marker cone on the exit of Stowe corner, this slight contact bending a suspension component on his first flying lap. His 25th position on the grid was equally a result of this incident and his relative lack of experience on a track where rivals had been cannily sneaking in practice by entering obscure races and going on racing school courses. Typically the race was a different story, as with his Van Diemen RF92 fixed and his understanding of this varied track growing by the lap, Wren put in increasingly quick times as he fought his way up the order, quickly becoming embroiled in a spectacular 11-car battle that stretched back from 15th place.

“It was fantastic racing, classic FF1600 stuff. I was in a group of cars constantly passing and repassing each other all the way,” he said. “At Combe you get used to getting past one car at a time and then moving on to the next target, but with the track so wide at Silverstone people could come back at you a lot more. That meant it was very hard for me to get out of this group of cars after qualifying with them, even though I’m pretty sure I could’ve gone faster.”

The lap chart bears out Wren’s theory, as his times were regularly comparable to those being set by the next group of cars up the road, a gaggle fighting in the top ten. In the last two laps he passed James Hagan, Peter McGill and Adrian Rush and secured 20th position overall, tenth in his class.

“The result was a bit disappointing but it was worth doing this race just for the experience, so I’m not really that bothered,” said James afterwards. “It was always going to be hard to get the hang of such a fantastic and challenging circuit in so few laps, but it was a real honour just to get to race on the Grand Prix track. We’re going to Thruxton next, another circuit that should be very, very good for racing in our cars, so hopefully that will be another very different and enjoyable experience.”