2009

Dan Wells started his short racing career in late 2009, aged 18. He competed in 11 Senior Rotax kart races in the South of the UK – setting a fastest lap in a field of 24 experienced drivers in his first ever race. Podiums followed immediately and he proved himself to be a force to be reckoned with in his short time in karting.

 

2010

A graduation to Formula Ford 1600 in 2010 was successful with John Percy, an engineer from Ringwood who ran him out of a single trailer against the larger more experienced teams. Racing in tracks across the UK – he took 5 class poles en route to 5 wins in just 7 race weekends.

 

This brought him to the attention of the Racing Steps Foundation for their 2010 Formula Renault UK Winter Cup shoot-out, consisting of psychometric tests, simulator assessments, physiological tests – the six week process culminating in a day at Rockingham in FRUK machinery. Dan was 0.6s clear of the other finalists and he looked favourite for the RSF backing.

It wasn’t to be however and long time McLaren F1 backed Oliver Rowland was chosen leaving Dan and his team with the task of finding the funding to continue in the series for 2011.

 

2011

He got on the grid from Round 3 of the Formula Renault UK Championship with Atech Reid GP and made huge progress during the season, scoring 12 top 10 finishes in 20 races and fighting in the top 4 of the fiercely competitive series regularly by the year’s end.

 

Some very generous sponsors and partners came forward to help him compete in the 2011 Formula Renault UK Finals Series which pitched him against 30 other of the best European and British driving talents. He emerged as Vice Champion with 3 podiums in 6 races, never finishing outside the top 6.

 

2012

Dan was a favourite for the 2012 Formula Renault UK title. Unfortunately, the championship was postponed just 2 weeks before the start of the season, due to the low number of entries. He decided to waste no time in pursuit of his racing ambitions and headed to Asia to drive for KCMG in the Ferrari-backed Formula Pilota China Series. He duly finished as Vice Champion in KCMG’s début year in the series, taking 3 wins and 9 podiums.

 

2013

 

Dan Wells & Investors Ltd was formed in May and Dan raced in the Shanghai and Macau Formula Masters China Series races with a best result of 2nd after 11 months out of the car due to previous funding issues.

 

2014

 

Dan went on to take 12 podiums from 18 races in the Formula Masters China Series, with an extremely strong end to the season which saw him take 5 podiums consecutively, winning on the two last race weekends of the year. He made his debut in British F3 with the Double R Racing team, where he took a podium in his first ever F3 race, and was awarded the Mobil One Driver of the Weekend Award. 

 

The opportunity arose to compete in the final round of the Japanese F3 Championship with Toda Racing, and Dan duly delivered, out-qualifying his Honda-backed, experienced team mate Shota Kiyohara at the Fuji Speedway. Dan also competed in the Macau F3 GP with Toda Racing.