Jack Young: being only Brit on the grid is “pretty special”

Reigning Clio Cup UK champion Jack Young has told TouringCarTimes that being the only British driver in this year’s World Touring Car Cup feels “pretty special”.

At only 18, Northern Irishman Young is befitting his name as the youngest driver on the 2020 grid – and the third-youngest ever in WTCR.

He is also the sole Briton in the field, following in the footsteps of touring car greats Andy Priaulx, Gordon Shedden and Rob Huff who all raced in the championship last year but departed over the winter.

Priaulx opted to step back from racing to focus on his son Sebastian’s own fledgling career, while Shedden was left without a drive after Audi withdrew its Customer Racing WTCR support, and Huff has found a new home competing for Lestrup Racing Team in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship.

That has left Young in an unexpected position as the only British driver at the top of the international touring car pyramid, where he races an all-new Renault Mégane RS TCR for Swiss outfit Vuković Motorsport.

“It feels pretty special to be honest,” Young said when asked by TouringCarTimes about his position. “Me representing the whole of the UK and the BRDC – I’m a Rising Star myself and they help out behind the scenes. Hopefully we can get some good results on the board. There have been some big names here, with Rob Huff taking the championship, and hopefully I can follow in their footsteps.”

Young turned heads last year when, after winning the Clio Cup world finals at Paul Ricard in late 2018, he traded in his prize Renault Mégane road car for a shot in TCR Europe at Barcelona.

He joined Vuković for that one-off, impressively sealing a brace of fourth places and beating the likes of Tom Coronel and Gianni Morbidelli on his debut.

“We did that round and didn’t expect anything, just getting the experience in the car,” Young explains. “It went well; I think we turned a few eyes and it certainly gave me some confidence.

“We were only supposed to do TCR Europe this season but with COVID shifting the WTCR calendar into Europe-only, that gave us the opportunity to come here instead. If you’d asked me a year ago ‘where would you want to end up in racing in five or six years?’, Id’ say WTCR. So to be there the next year is amazing. I’m lost for words. I want to take my time here and try to impress.”

Young was 18th fastest in opening free practice at the Zolder curtain-raiser on Friday, 1.2s down on pace-setter Néstor Girolami, but half a second up on Australian wild card team-mate Dylan O’Keeffe in the only other Renault Mégane RS TCR.

“We haven’t had much testing, only two tests before coming here I think,” Young concluded. “So it was still a learning curve going into FP1. We made a few changes to the car and we’re still developing it steeply, the team is putting in a massive effort. We need to keep making tweaks and I think we will be up there in FP2 and qualifying tomorrow. The other guys are very experienced but I have to put that behind me and just get on with the job.”