James in action in at Pembrey.

If his debut in the opening BARC Formula Renault Championship at Silverstone was impressive, finding the right word to describe what James did in round 2 at the Pembrey race circuit in South Wales, will be a little more difficult.

During qualifying for the first race of the weekend, James immediately set his mark by breaking the lap record of 56.4s, on his way to his maiden class pole position, with an exceedingly rapid time of 56.113s! If that was not enough to rattle the opposition, the single-seater rookie then went on to take the fastest lap in the race that followed at 56.701s, over 2/10ths clear of the nearest opposition.

It was the race itself though where the 18-year old marked his card as a ‘star potential’ in the making. And he did it in style too. Over the entire race distance, he led from lights to flag to take the win, less than 3 weeks after making his debut in the first round of the series. It was, to coin a phrase, a truly remarkable performance from a very remarkable young talent.

“I really enjoyed that,” was James’ comment immediately after the race had finished, to the appreciative crowd that had gathered below the podium. “These things are fantastic. I had some close wheel to wheel racing at the start of the race and had a moment or two. Once I was able to settle down I simply pushed hard to create a gap and give myself some space to take away the pressure. I then concentrated on not making any mistakes. I had about a 2-second lead over the 2nd car, my team-mate in fact, but this went down to a second at the end when I had to pass a few back-markers. I’m really pleased. Not bad for a rookie!!”

Even though technically speaking James is still a novice rookie, he has overnight turned into being one of the Championship favourites, and has turned more than a few heads in the motor racing world, not least the teams running the other vastly more experienced drivers.

“I think he’s got them worried!” commented James Beales, the JA Motorsport Team Manager, whose team are delighted they have James on board this year. “He is living up to, and beyond all our expectations.”

Round 3 was a little more fraught, however, owing to a hic-cup with the timings taken from second qualifying. As he had done in the first session, James again led the pack at the top of the time-sheets, where he set what should have been the true pole position time of 56.369s for the race. In a bizarre and farcical outcome though, three rogue times placed three drivers ahead of the JA Motorsport ace, with an allegedly faster pole position time of an incredibly rapid 55.592s. Since this was James’ own team-mate, whose on-board data logger had set the time at an actual 56.592s, then the 1-second timing error was clear to see.

Although the organisers acknowledged that something was wrong, the top three times remained, which left the true pole-sitter back on grid 4. Edged out at the start back to 5th position and nearly run into the pit-wall during the race, James nevertheless recovered lost ground to the three leaders after re-claiming 4th place. In doing so he rapidly closed the gap, and latched onto the rear of the three-car pack in the closing laps, setting yet another fastest lap time in race at 56.919s. 

Despite ‘only’ finishing in 4th place, James now leads the championship. The Championship organisers will also hopefully take a look at the timing system to ensure that a similar occurrence does not blight the starting order in one of the future rounds. 

On a more positive note, James passed his ARDS exams and assessment on the following Monday, to become a fully qualified race driver instructor at The Johnny Herbert Race School, at the Rockingham Motor-speedway, and is believed to be one of their youngest instructors! And a race winner at that!

The northern circuit at Croft is the next venue for the series, where in testing James broke the lap record. Watch this space!