Good first outing for Darryl O’Young in the BMW

An off season switch to BMW was working well for Darryl O’Young at Monza, with the Hong Kong driver the fastest BMW in qualifying and grabbing pole for race two, but rain on Sunday didn’t work in the rear-wheel drive cars favour.

O’Young felt at home in the BMW straight away, an experienced rear-wheel drive car racer in GT racing, and with a good tow was able to set the tenth fastest time in qualifying, the fastest of all the BMWs in his ROAL Motorsport-run BMW 320 TC.

Unfortunately heavy rain on Sunday made the conditions very tricky for all and especially tricky for the BMW drivers. O’Young slipped to 13th in race one and fell backwards from pole for race two all the way to 12th, but still scored well towards the Yokohama Independents’ Trophy, and is the second highest placed BMW driver in the category behind Fredy Barth, and fifth overall.

“There are many positives to take away from this weekend such as our qualifying pace,” said O’Young. “I feel very confident as we head into the next few races. The conditions for Sunday race day completely changed everything for us, as it rained the entire day and rear-wheel drive cars are known to struggle in the rain. It’s frustrating as I feel the pole position (of Race 2) was wasted this time in Italy.”