Photo: WTCC Media

Strong weekend for Special Tuning Racing

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Special Tuning Racing had their best weekend of the season at the Slovakiaring, with Darryl O’Young picking up points in both races and Tom Boardman also scoring his first Championship points with eighth in race one in the ageing SEAT León TDI.

Darryl O’Young qualified in 16th in the SEAT León WTCC, equipped with the new SEAT Sport 1.6 turbo engine, whilst Tom Boardman suffered with a broken steering arm on his first lap in qualifying and was forced to start from the back of the grid for both races in the 2.0 TDI powered SEAT.

Both drivers progressed up the order in both races however, with O’Young and Boardman finishing seventh and eighth in race one, and ninth and eleventh respectively in race two.

“It was a good race day,” said O’Young to TouringCarTimes. “Getting qualifying pace on the high speed corners with the SEAT, I just wasn’t confident there yet, but we made some adjustments, the warm-up didn’t go well, but I just focused in on the race and focused on conserving the tyres and it went well.”

“I was able to lap with similar lap times to most of the leaders…our pace wasn’t far off the Lukoil cars, of course they have the fastest lap as they’re out the front whilst I was in the mid-field fighting.”

“We need to get the qualifying in order, then we can be scoring more points and finishing in the top five.”

Boardman also enjoyed Sunday’s races, often having to defend then attack in the older TDI, but took his first top ten of the season and also moved into the top ten of the Yokohama Independents’ Trophy.

“It’s good for the team, we scored more points than the Fords, more points than the Bamboos. We came here thinking we won’t be strong but it’s turned out alright really.”

The plan is for Boardman to contest just two more races at the Hungaroring and Salzburg before finally switching to the new 1.6 turbo engine as used by team-mate O’Young, SUNRED’s Pepe Oriola and the two Lukoil Racing SEATs of Aleksei Dudukalo and yesterday’s race winner Gabriele Tarquini.

“It’s definitely going to be for Portugal,” said Boardman. “After Austria (the car’s) going straight back to the factory and the engine will be there waiting for us.”