An engine problem in qualifying prevented Darryl O’Young from posting a lap time, continuing Special Tuning Racing’s bad luck on their return to the World Touring Car Championship.
The team are using the new SEAT Sport developed 1.6 turbo engine this season and as O’Young left the pitlane to set a qualifying lap his engine failed. This continues the bad luck experienced by the team as Tom Boardman is unable to race this weekend, despite being at the circuit, due to problems with the supply of his new engine from SEAT Sport.
“We’ve had a real difficult start with Tom not racing as well – we’ve had a shortage of parts for that,” said Chief Engineer Gary Robertshaw to Touring-Cars.Net. “It’s all come together really late, not just for us but for SEAT as well. The reason we’ve got so close to SEAT again is that I know how much development they’re putting in – it’s serious. We have the same car, same engine, same everything as Gabriele – and the same potential.”
O’Young will therefore line up in 23rd for both of tomorrow’s races – although he remains positive about his chances.
“It’s going to be tough for sure – it’s not really where you want to start but like I said to the team, if there’s any circuit you want to start from the back it’s Monza,” explained O’Young. “The first chicane is notorious plus there’s so much slipstreaming going on here and people fighting that if you get some momentum you can pass a lot of cars so easily if you really work hard on getting good runs. With some luck we can fight back in both races and try and get some points in the Independents.”
When asked about the differences between his 2011 chassis, the Chevrolet Cruze, and his current SEAT León, O’Young added that the Chevrolet was ‘ready to race’ whereas Special Tuning Racing are involved more in the process of developing SEAT’s new 1.6 turbo engine in 2012.
“The car itself is really different,” added O’Young. “It’s quite interesting working with SEAT Sport to develop this engine. Compared to the Chevrolet it’s a different process but you can see the speed of the car this weekend. Of course this is still the early stages and people will continue working on this engine and continue to develop the driveability. Although the engine went on our car it will help the overall development to find out whats wrong and correct it for the next race.”