Daniel Lloyd was left to wonder what might have been at Thruxton after a minor mechanical error prevented him from challenging for his best result of the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship season.
Huddersfield-racer Daniel made the trip to the fastest circuit on the calendar on the back of a promising outing at Snetterton two weeks earlier, where extensive work on his Team HARD-run Cupra Leon had helped to unlock extra pace from the all-new car.
Able to hit the ground running when track action kicked off as a result, Daniel was immediately inside the top ten in the opening practice session of the weekend and then improved his time in FP2 to leave confidence high going into qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
Despite going slightly the wrong way on set-up ahead of the session, Daniel battled hard to put his car twelfth on the grid for the opening race, safe in the knowledge that there was more pace in the Cupra and with a top ten finish being the goal for the opening race of the weekend.
Unfortunately for Daniel, an issue with a sensor on the engine during the race – which resulted in the throttle sticking open – left him with no option but to bring the car into the pits, where the team worked hard to resolve the issue and get him back on track.
Able to rejoin three laps down to check the problem had been fully fixed, Daniel would be left unclassified in the results.
Starting at the back of the field for race two on a circuit where overtaking is notoriously difficult, Daniel made a demon start to climb up six spots on the opening lap and by the end of lap six, found himself on the fringes of the points scoring positions.
Taking the flag in 17th place, Daniel would fall victim to a track limits penalty that dropped him back to 21st in the results, leaving him with work to do in his quest to score points in the weekend finale.
Once again making up ground at the start, Daniel battled his way into the top 20 but the expected difficulties from running in the pack meant he was only able to get up to 18th place by the chequered flag; his results from the three races not being a true reflection of the pace in both car and driver.
“It turned out to be a bit of a frustrating weekend because we had genuine pace in the car but unfortunately, something outside our control really hurt our chances on race day,” Daniel said.
“On Saturday, the car felt the best it has been all season, and even though we made a small error with the set-up in qualifying that meant we missed out on the top ten, P12 was a good place to start race one.
“We were firmly in the mix and pushing to make up places when there was an issue with a sensor on the engine that meant I had to pit and we dropped to the back of the field, which was always going to make it difficult from that point on.
“To get through to 16th in race two showed the pace was in the car but luck wasn’t on my side again, with a ten-second penalty for track limits following the new regulations that have come into force undoing all the hard work that had gone in.
“A P18 finish in race three didn’t reflect the pace in the car but running in traffic around Thruxton is so difficult with the dirty air and the aerowash you have to deal with, so we did the best we could. Look at Ash Sutton as an example; no-one could get close to him in the first two races when he was at the front, but he made no progress when he was behind people in the reverse grid race.
“Although race day turned out to be one to forget in terms of the results, there are plenty of things that give me confidence and leave me positive about what we can achieve in the races to come.”
