Jack Young had to ‘dig deep’ to bag first TCR Europe pole

Race 1 pole sitter Jack Young says he had to dig deep in the final seconds to secure his maiden TCR Europe series pole position at Zandvoort.

The Brutal Fish Racing Honda Civic Type-R driver had been the benchmark through a tightly fought qualifying session but fell to second after Tom Coronel put his Comtoyou Racing Audi RS 3 LMS top with just a few seconds remaining.

But Young responded a terrific fashion, setting the fastest time with his final flying lap.

“That was very good. I didn’t think we had it at the end, the team was on the radio saying that Tom had gone quicker and so it was ‘go, go, go’ and I just managed to pull it out of the bag this time,” Young said.

“P1 will be good for the race so we’ll see what happens, hopefully it’ll all go well.

Young admitted that he didn’t think he needed to do a final lap after setting the fastest time by just one-hundredth of a second on his penultimate flyer.

“I thought my first lap would be good enough for pole and so we would have another set (of tyres) for the race,” Young added.

“But then I heard from the team that Tom had gone quicker and so I thought ‘oh no, here we go’.

“I can’t complain – all the hard work the team has put in, especially after the disappointment in France, so to come back like this is very good.

With attention switched to this afternoon’s opening race of the weekend, Young predicts plenty of action, and aims to stay clear of what he anticipates will be a ‘messy’ encounter.

“I think the race will be a bit messy as it’s so tight here and the banks are like NASCAR, but I really like this track and so I’ll be pushing for sure.”