Former British Formula 3 podium-finisher Dan Wells has made a front-running debut in the Chinese Touring Car Championship, converting pole position into a fourth place finish in his Chang’an Ford FRD Team-prepared Ford Focus.
Wells set the pace around the Nanjing Wantrack International Circuit in qualifying, taking top spot by 0.159 seconds. Losing ground early on in the opening race, Wells took an eventual finish of fourth, before he suffered an unfortunate retirement in race two with an early crash.
Wells is making history this season as the first non-Chinese driver to race in the CTCC, competing in the Super Cup 2.0T class in four of the eight meetings across the season, the maximum permitted for an international driver.
“It’s been an interesting race weekend,” commented Wells. “Coming into the championship, we did not know where we stood compared to the opposition but the team managed to secure a fantastic result in qualifying after a lot of effort over the winter.
“The first was a great team effort too which ensured a Ford 1-2-3-4. It is of course disappointing to suffer the difficulties we did in race two, but that is racing and I’m looking forward to working with Ford in the future”.
The Hong Kong-based Brit makes the transition to touring cars after utterly dominating the Asian Formula Renault Championship last season, taking ten consecutive race victories to win the title by over one hundred points.
That follows a busy few years for Wells since he made the move to Asia after competing in Formula Renault UK in 2011, with the 2012 Formula Pilota China vice-champion having made also outings in Formula Masters China, Japanese F3, the Macau F3 Grand Prix and the Asian Le Mans Series.
One of Wells’ team-mates is 2014 British F3 champion Martin Cao Hong-Wei, who also previously competed in the Formula Renault BARC category. Cao took second place in the opening race, before suffering a retirement of his own in race two.
