Vice-Champion Dan Wells Celebrates With The Atech Reid GP Team - Photo Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Dan Wells is hoping to mount a title challenge in the 2012 Formula Renault UK Championship after the Atech Reid GP driver starred in the Protyre Formula Renault UK Finals Series, taking three podiums on his way to second in the championship.
Starting at Snetterton on the 5th/6th November, the Finals Series saw Wells up against thirty Formula Renault rivals, including some of the best drivers from the UK and Eurocup championships. Wells was straight on the pace in Norfolk, running comfortably in the top four in qualifying. After finishing fourth in the first race, Wells narrowly missed out on a maiden win in race two, finishing a close second for his first Formula Renault podium.
His strong run of form continued the next day, qualifying sixth and third for the two races, before going on to finish the races in the same positions, putting him second in the championship heading to Rockingham a week later. The Salisbury-based racer coped well with a tricky qualifying session to put himself fifth for both races, which he converted into third and sixth place finishes to cement his position as the runner up in the championship.
Speaking at Rockingham, Wells said: “I’m relatively happy with the weekend. We should have been P3 in qualifying but I made a mistake on my best lap. We didn’t win both races, so they obviously could have been better, but I’m definitely happy to have outperformed a lot of other drivers here to finish a strong second in the championship.
“Overall, we’ve had three podiums in six races, which is great. At Snetterton we were really strong and in the second race, we were right on the back of Olly [Rowland], but the gap just wasn’t quite there to get the win. It was a shame we came away from the series without that elusive win, but hopefully we’ll be able to come back next year and win the main championship.”
The Finals Series capped off a strong few months for Wells, who was challenging for podium finishes in the final few meetings of main 2011 campaign. Wells now hopes to team up with Atech Reid GP once again for next year’s Formula Renault campaign and believes together they can do well, should a budget be available to him.
Wells concluded: “Atech Reid GP have been fantastic, I just can’t put it into words how great they’ve been and everyone in the team works such long hours, any troubles we have had they’ve got sorted. Everything just works so incredibly well and I feel like we’ve made such strong progress. I hope to be able to find some sponsors to come back to the main series, so I’ve got to work hard over the coming months. If we do come back together next year, we’d be a force to be reckoned with.”
