Melbourne racing driver Dylan Young had a challenging weekend during the Formula 3 Regional round of the Ultimate Cup Series at the Magny Cours Circuit in France from October 6-8.
The Australian was the only driver to miss Thursday’s private test session before the weekend compared to his rivals and so had his work cut out for him once Friday’s practice sessions and qualifying got underway.
The Aussie, who qualified in P3 at the same circuit last year, had to settle for 8th place in qualifying this time out amongst a field of 17 drivers.
In Race 1, after Young had held position at the start, the safety car was called due to a car who had stopped and left oil at the final chicane. Unfortunately for Young, he was a victim of this as he picked up the oil and immediately lost the car at the next corner. There was no damage to Young’s car but he had to retire his No. 11 Graff Racing F3 which was beached on the banking.
For Race 2, Dylan was determined to make up places and get his weekend back on track. On the first lap into the hairpin, two cars ran wide and Dylan dived up the inside at the apex and looked to make the move on the exit up to 6th. However one of the cars continued spinning on the exit kerb which forced another competitor to dart to the right, immediately breaking Young’s front wing.
Dylan was called into the pits by his team on Lap 2 as his wing violently shook about and the Melburnian changed his front nose and exited the pits at the back of the field. However Dylan then managed a strong showing to fight from the back of the pack up to 10th place with only a few laps remaining in what was another unlucky race, seemingly the story of Young’s season.
For Race 3, the grid was set by the combined finishing positions from Race 1 and 2, leaving Young a tough task ahead off the line from 13th place. But Dylan immediately got to work, moving through the pack one by one in what is a traditionally difficult circuit for overtaking. Young managed some great lunges as he fought his way through the field and finished in 8th place at the chequered flag. He demonstrated strong pace, with lap times just shy of the podium places and leading pack, despite eating up his tyres with the overtaking.
Dylan Young: "I can’t hide the fact I’m disappointed with how this weekend panned out as I’m always striving for more, especially after last year’s strong season. There’s always positives to take, and obviously I was up against it without having been able to complete the testing on the Thursday for a number of reasons. So compared to the rest of the field who got a lot more running, I’m quite pleased. But our results last year show we have a lot more pace and we should be standing on the podium each race which hasn’t happened lately with a pretty unlucky season behind us."
"I’d like to thank the partners that have been supporting my campaign along with my team Graff Racing and I really believe we will reap the rewards of all the hard work shortly. I’m now fully focused on getting back to where we belong!"
ENDS