| A rollercoaster weekend of action during the seventh Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship meeting of the 2021 season delivered plenty of on-track drama for Daniel Lloyd at his home track, Croft Circuit last weekend (18-19 September). Despite a promising start, Huddersfield’s Lloyd was unfortunately caught up in the notoriously robust door-to-door racing that the BTCC is famed for, with heavy contact bringing his racing to an earlier end than planned. A strong performance during Saturday afternoon’s qualifier saw the 29-year-old looking on target for a second-row start during the early part of the 30-minute session before falling down the order as the grid picked up pace. In spite of being just 0.508 seconds off the fastest lap, the #123 Vauxhall Astra would line up in P14. Sunday’s opening contest bode well for the Yorkshireman’s home circuit return. Following a lightning start off the line, Lloyd made good progress up the grid during the safety-car interrupted race, cutting his way into the highly competitive top-ten and eventually bringing his Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing Astra home in P9. Regrettably, the first race would prove to be the highlight of his weekend. Unavoidable contact from an errant car in race two resulted in heavy damage to the set-up on the Astra and Lloyd was forced to nurse the machine around the track for the remaining laps. After significant efforts and repairs by the #123 garage in time for the final race of the day, Lloyd’s opportunity to repay the crew was short-lived when he was pitched off track on the opening lap – sent off into the gravel and unable to re-join the race. Daniel Lloyd #123: “Qualifying was looking good on Saturday. We were sitting in P3 until six minutes to go and then a load of other cars found a load more time which dropped us to 14th. It was a big disappointment after being right at the top. “Race one was great. I drove really well to get up to 9th. The car needed some big tweaks for race two and we went for the faster optimal tyres so it was looking positive with an improved car. Sadly, we got some contact from another car which resulted in some big damage to the setup. I was able to carry on, but the handling on the car meant that we kept dropping back further with each lap. We did well to end in P18 all things considered! I felt like I had a bit of a target on me in that race. Then in race three, I was collected by a car that was hit by someone else on the opening lap, so that was the end of that. “It was a weekend of what could have been. It was looking very positive at one point, but sadly it didn’t go our way. “Off-track the weekend was a big success. We had lots of guests and sponsors who came along and enjoyed a great day out. There was a brilliant turnout for our charity walk on Saturday evening as well. About 60 people joined us and we managed to add to our fundraising total for the Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice, which is fantastic.” “The guys have a bit of work to do now to get the car ready for next weekend as we head straight to Silverstone. We’re just looking for a bit of a break at some point! It’s always great to race on the National circuit. It’s a favourite of mine, so it would be good to get a result that our hard work deserves.” It’s a back-to-back race weekend for Lloyd and the Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing squad as the BTCC gets straight back into action on the iconic National Circuit layout at Silverstone this coming weekend (25-26 September) for the eighth meeting of the year. Silverstone National Circuit rounds 22, 23, 24 schedule: Saturday 25th September09.30 – 10.10 Free Practice12.05 – 12.45 Free Practice14.40 – 15.25 Qualifying – live streaming via: www.itv.com/btcc/articles/qualifyingSunday 26th September11.30 – Round 2214.20 – Round 2317.05 – Round 24Live on ITV4, ITV4HD & www.itv.com/hub/itv4 from 11.00 – 18.05Live timing for all sessions is available at https://www.tsl-timing.com/event/213803 |
