Nicolas Taylor put on a stunning performance to finish as the best-placed of the drivers who opted to run the second race at Spa-Francorchamps on slick tyres, the wrong choice as it turned out, and scored strong points all weekend in both the overall and Youth Best drivers’ categories.

After leading through much of the second race with four Kumho Ecsta slick tyres fitted to his PMA Motorsport Audi RS 3 LMS, he was vulnerable to the wet-shod Ruben Volt late in the race and wasn’t able to pick up his second win of the season in the end, but second place was enough to ensure he remained on top of the Youth Best drivers’ standings after Spa, and more importantly very close to the top of the overall drivers’ championship, just five points behind new leader Mike Halder.

“I think the first 11 cars went with full slicks, we thought about going half-half, but we decided to follow everyone else,” said Taylor. “I had a good start but there was a bit of chaos in the first corner, I think some of the CUPRAs came into the corner pretty hot and I got clipped in the rear, but into Eau Rouge I was P3.

“I slipped by Baldan and then I was fighting for P1 for a couple of laps and had a sketchy moment with Park at Raidillon. I was leading the race but then some cloud came over and put some more water on the track and it was just getting more slippery and we were just trying to survive. Ruben (Volt) and Tiago (Pernía) on different tyre set-ups just came on really fast and we couldn’t put on much of a fight, but ultimately I’m really happy to have got good points in the championship and to be the best of those on slick tyres.”