Melbourne racing driver, Dylan Young has rounded out the 2017/2018 MRF Challenge in strong fashion.
Races 13-16 of the Championship were held last weekend from February 2-4 at the MMRT Circuit in Chennai, India.
Young managed a best race result of 5th place in Race 2 of the weekend with a superb performance to hold off the Championship winner Felipe Drugovich, a man with 10-race wins to his name this season.
Young not only showed that he had the speed to match it with the best but also the mental strength to not make a mistake with the Champion behind him on what is highly regarded as the most challenging circuit both technically and physically.
Dylan went into the final round sitting in 6th in the Championship standings. However, after a tight battle in Chennai, Young has secured 8th place out of 19 drivers from across the globe in the 2017/2018 MRF Challenge Championship.
Ultimately, a difficult weekend at Round 2 in Dubai and trouble in qualifying for Chennai last weekend meant Young had his work cut out for him to hold 6th place.
Despite a tricky qualifying which didn't represent his true pace, Dylan made up positions in each race in Chennai to finish 8th in Race 1, 9th in Race 3, 11th in Race 3 and the highlight being the 5th place finish in Race 2.
Young's best race result of the season was a third place podium in Round 1 at the Bahrain F1 Circuit last November.
The Australian was pleased with his performance given it is well known he lacks the financial budget and year-round track time of the other drivers in the Championship.
"All in all I'm pretty pumped with 8th in the Championship," Dylan said.
"It would have been nice to have kept 6th place but it was close in the end. I'm really pleased with the speed in the races in Chennai, both in attacking to pass cars ahead and also not cracking under pressure whilst defending from the Champion for an entire race. I want to thank my engineer Danny King, and especially my number 1 mechanic Les Walters who has been with me for a few years as we work really well together. I also want to extend a thank you to the entire team at MRF and JA Motorsport for all their support and the countless hours they put in. Finally, a huge shout out to all my partners and now it's time to work really hard to put a program in place for the 2018 season!"
Young has recently announced he is looking to race in Australia for the 2018 season with the aim of a future Virgin Australia Supercars career. Whilst Young is leaving all options open including any overseas drives, he is committed to coming back home and hopes to announce news on this shortly.
Dylan Young's 2017/2018 MRF Challenge campaign was proudly supported by:
Platypus, IntelliTrac, Entourage Finance, Besser + Co Estate Agents, Boost Mobile, Forum Enviro, SKINS, Powertoolz, Vista Eyes, Designsport, Urban Maintenance Systems, SEEK, Hi Voltage Karts, Melbourne Watch Company and Evado Studios.
ENDS