Daniel Lloyd has vowed to fight back to form after enduring a ‘disastrous weekend’ on track as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship resumed at Knockhill after the summer break.
The Huddersfield-racer made the trip to Scotland on the back of the best weekend of his BTCC career at Croft, where he stormed to two race wins at his home circuit.
It came just two weeks after an enormous accident at Oulton Park threatened to derail his season, with a video montage of his astonishing recovery – in which he was referred to as the ‘Amazing Dan Lloyd’ – airing at the start of ITV’s broadcast coverage of the Knockhill weekend.
On track however, the sixth round of the season would prove to be the complete opposite of the dream weekend that Daniel enjoyed a month earlier, with a myriad of issues leaving him struggling to challenge for points finishes.
Free practice on Saturday showed that all was not well with his Hyundai i30 Fastback N, with a mistake on set-up – and hybrid issues that would remain all weekend – leaving him struggling for outright pace.
A stuck wheel hub – only removed after the team was able to utilise an Abracs.com cutting blade – did little to help when qualifying came around, and left Daniel back in 22nd spot on the grid.
Despite extensive work on the car on Saturday evening, an issue with the differential left Daniel with an ill-handling car in race one that he somehow managed to take to 19th spot.
An unusually tight turnaround between the opening two races prevented the team from resolving the issue for race two, where mid-race contact would also drop Daniel down the order as he crossed the line in 22nd.
Although the diff was then replaced for race three – where Daniel was interviewed by ITV on his green flag lap to the grid – he continued to struggle for outright speed and would end the weekend with 18th place, preventing him from scoring any points to add to his championship tally.
Despite that, he remains eighth in the standings ahead of the next round of the season at Snetterton in a fortnight.
“It’s been a disaster of a weekend – there is no other way to put it,” he said. “We headed for Knockhill on a real high after the results at Croft, but one mistake right at the start on the set-up of the car – as well as issues with the hybrid that would persist all weekend – led to things snowballing.
“Saturday was really difficult as we just didn’t have the pace and then in race one we had a diff issue that meant the car was spinning its wheels in third and fourth gear – so even though I made a great start to get up to 17th, it was almost undriveable.
“Because the schedule was so tight, it couldn’t be fixed for race two so that was meant we had to effectively write that one off, although getting hit off track didn’t help and meant further damage that I really don’t need when we’re still trying to bring in additional sponsors to cover what happened at Oulton Park.
“In race three, the diff was fixed but we still didn’t have any pace in the car, which we need to look into back at base. However, when you combine the stuck wheel nut, the hybrid issue and the diff problem to the set-up error we were trying to resolve, it created a perfect storm that we just couldn’t overcome.
“It’s a massive shame because we know how the strong the car is, even though I doubt we’d have been able to challenge the BMWs this weekend for outright honours. I have to accept that this was not my weekend and it’s now more important than ever that we bounce back at Snetterton, avoid the mistakes that were made this weekend, and return to the kind of form we know are capable of.
“If there is a positive to take away from the weekend, it’s that the guests I had present from Abracs and Continental Wine and Foods enjoyed their time at the circuit – even with the tough time we endured on track. Hopefully in future, they will have more reason to cheer when they are trackside supporting me.”
Dan’s recap of the weekend on his DLR TV YouTube channel will be available later this week.
