Young Driver Challenge: All's well that ends well

The best thing in advance: All three finalists of the "AutoScout24 Young Driver Challenge powered by Seat" survived their race baptism unscathed, and each finished in the standings in both rounds during their race weekend.

Whereas Orhan Vouilloz, who took his turn in the ADAC TCR Germany finale at Hockenheim last weekend, only made it into the classification of the first race with luck or with the bad luck of his compatriot Jasmin Preisig.

The newcomer, who lives in Chardonne VD, was already on the retreat because a mount of the front spoiler was broken on the Seat Leon TCR due to contact with an enemy, making the car almost impossible to drive. Since the race was stopped for the purpose of recovering the crashed Appenzeller and the classification was drawn up according to the order of the lap before the red flag, Vouilloz remained in 32nd place in the standings.

He showed what he was capable of the next day. Again starting from the back of the grid, Vouilloz worked his way cleanly towards the midfield. Once again, an accident caused the race to be stopped early, which also halted the Frenchman's forward momentum.

"That was fun. I had a few nice fights and was able to make up positions. It's a shame that the whole thing is already over," Vouilloz reported after his 26th place. Four of the 31 competitors out of 35 who started were slower than the youngster from Switzerland in terms of their fastest lap times.

The winner will be announced at the Auto Zürich Car Show
If one now draws a sober balance on the basis of pure results, then Oliver Holdener was the best of the three Young Drivers at his event from September 15 to 17 at the Sachsenring. The 21-year-old from Bennau, Switzerland, who turned 21 on his race weekend, immediately moved into the dense TCR midfield in both free practice sessions, qualified eleventh in his group for the two races and finished them in 30th (like Gustavo Xavier at the Nürburgring) and 16th (Xavier 25th).

Whoever is the overall winner and can therefore enjoy further sponsorship from Seat Switzerland and AutoScout24 (if they have the will to continue and raise a large part of the budget) will be announced on November 2 as part of the Auto Zürich Car Show.

Then it will also be known whether and how the project will be continued in 2018. Sandra Grau, brand manager of Seat Switzerland since February 2017, was definitely thrilled during her first visit to a car race. "I like this atmosphere. This project fits very well with Seat as a young, dynamic and sporty brand."

www.autoscout24.ch/ydchallenge

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