Jack Young aiming for top five finish after strong debut

TCR Europe series debutant Jack Young is aiming for a top five finish in each of this weekend’s races at Barcelona, after a strong qualifying on his first outing in the Renault Mégane RS TCR.

Young, who races regularly in the Renault Clio UK championship, will start eighth on the grid for the opening race of the weekend, and third for tomorrow’s second encounter.

The Belfast teenager believes he has the pace in his Megane TCR to challenge the front-running competition and is unfazed about the prospect of heavy rain affecting Race 1 later today.

“I am more confident in the wet than I am in the dry, it’s always been that way since karting so I’m really pleased [with eighth],” Young told TouringCarTimes.

“We haven’t had a race run in the wet so far so ideally I’d prefer it to be dry for the races. But I’m happy with either because I prefer the rain.”

Young started competitively in Friday’s dry practice running, setting the 12th quickest time in FP2 and only +0.865 off Santiago Urrutia’s fastest effort.

“Yesterday we weren’t far off the pace either, just four tenths from Josh [Files] so we’re right up there. I guess we’ll be on the pace tomorrow hopefully and make some places up in Race 1 today.”

“Hopefully we can get top five for both races, that’s my aim really.”

The Vukovic Motorsport driver survived an off-track moment in the first segment of qualifying and bounced back to finish Q1 sixth fastest.

Despite limited testing and Renault Clio Cup commitments either side of this weekend, Young is confident he can mix it with the leading cars in the races.

“These last few months have been crazy, every weekend is a race weekend and I’m going back to Silverstone next weekend for Clio Cup, but right now my focus is on Race 1 and Race 2 this weekend.

“We’ve just had one day in the cat and never been out on wets before, so it’s been okay [this weekend]. I went off in Q1 but managed to get in back to the pits alright, then I got up to P8 so it wasn’t that bad.

“Hopefully it goes well, a lot of people are watching at home so I want to impress them. Josh Files was my mentor last year so the aim is to get right onto the back bumper in the races,” joked Young.