O’Young avoids bad luck, jumps to second of indies

bamboo-engineering’s Darryl O’Young took his firs independent class victory at Portimao and a strong weekend overall to close up on Sergio Hernandez in the points.

The independents’ had a new face to worry about all weekend though, as West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington held all the cards during practice and qualifying.

The reigning BTCC champion was competing in his first WTCC race since Macau 2007, and would have found himself among the overall points finishers and possibly even on pole for race two if it hadn’t been for contact with SUNRED’s Fredy Barth, for which Barth received a reprimand.

Turkington finished second in the class in race two, and left the weekend with 16 points in the Yokohama Independents Trophy, already more than Liqui-Moly Engstler driver Andrei Romanov has scored all season.

“It was a good experience and I learnt a lot today.” said Turkington.
“I have taken a lot of encouragement from today, the pace of the car was good and there are many positive signs that we can take with us to the next couple of races.”

Sergio Hernandez won the first race in the independents’ category, but bamboo-engineering’s Darryl O’Young followed just over a tenth of a second behind at the line in that race, and went on to take his first class victory in the second race whilst Hernandez finished 8th, allowing the Hong Kong driver to catch-up significantly in the standings, in addition to picking up his first points in the overall championship at the weekend.

O’Young said:
“I have been in the lead before but finally I have a win. It’s a good weekend for my bamboo-engineering team as they always do a great job and finally I have given them a victory. I have also moved up in the championship so I’m right in the fight now. I am really pleased with this weekend.”

Yokohama Independents’ Trophy Standings after Portugal