Jack Young has been crowned the 2019 Renault UK Clio Cup Champion after taking victory ahead of rival Max Coates in the championship’s final round at Brands Hatch yesterday (Sun 13 Oct).
The 18-year-old from Belfast becomes the UK Clio Cup’s youngest title winner in history in this, the championship’s final season.
Young’s success marks a first title in the championship for Mike Ritchie’s MRM team and he also collected the Graduates Cup trophy for younger drivers in the category. However Coates’ Team HARD outfit took honours in the Entrants Trophy.
Young’s weekend got off to a dramatic start when a time penalty dropped him to 12th in Saturday’s penultimate round. This allowed Coates, who finished the race in third, to take over the championship lead by just a single point – meaning whoever finished in front of the other in Sunday’s big finale would be Champion.
Live on ITV4, Coates (Scorton) had it all to do, as he started the race from back in tenth on the grid with Young several rows up ahead of him in third.
Both drove a Champion’s race, Young eventually taking over first place and hammering in three fastest laps in a row to build a comfortable advantage before the charging Coates made it through for second position.
In the end, after an intense season-long battle, just five points separated at them at the top of the table – Young on 362 and Coates on 357. Each ends the season on seven wins apiece (final points tables here).
An ecstatic Young commented: “Those final laps – when I got the lead it was head down and building a gap in case Max came through and he did. The last lap… I’ve never know butterflies like it. Coming out of the last corner I could see the team on the pit wall and the feeling I had going past them was just indescribable.”
A gutted Coates said: “I put everything into that race and not many people come through from P10 to P2… still after four years of trying it’s not come our way. We gave it everything and it’s been such a rollercoaster season with some massive highs and lows along the way.
“Congratulations to Jack. We’ve had our fair share of moments but he’s also driven well as in this race when the pressure was on. We might not always see eye to eye but we do respect one another.”
Championship stalwart James Colburn (Worthing) started both races from pole position for Westbourne Motorsport and went on to finish them in second and third – fitting results as he raced in memory of his late friend and fellow racer Marc Swaffer.
Meanwhile, on his home circuit, MRM’s Brett Lidsey (Northfleet) took his second victory of 2019 in Saturday’s race – thanks in part to a demon start from fifth on the grid. He finishes fourth in the standings behind another ‘Brands local’, Team HARD’s Jamie Bond (West Malling) in third who, having missed the season’s opening rounds, has been one of the season’s revelations.
In addition to Colburn’s results, Westbourne could celebrate its best performance in qualifying with the top three positions on the grid for race one and a front-row lock-out for race two thanks to the efforts of Anton Spires (Buckingham) and Ben Colburn (Worthing).
Spires and MRM’s Nathan Edwards (Tunbridge Wells) showed strongly in both races, too – the latter taking a fine fourth in the final round.
The Renault UK Clio Cup would like to congratulate the winners of all other categories held during the British Touring Car Championship’s events in 2019 including: Colin Turkington (BTCC); Zane Maloney (British F4); James Hedley (Ginetta Juniors); Harry King (Ginetta GT4); Dan Harper (Carrera Cup).
