Daniel Lloyd secured his best result of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB season at Brands Hatch with a battling drive to eighth in the final race of the weekend.
The Huddersfield racer headed into the second meeting of the campaign looking to improve on a challenging opening event at Donington Park, where difficult weather conditions had led to only one of the two planned races actually being run.
That in turn meant three races around the Brands Hatch Indy layout, the first of which came on Saturday afternoon following qualifying for rounds three and four of the year.
Lining up in twelfth place for the rescheduled race, Daniel would spend the entire race sitting behind former BTCC rival Stephen Jelley, with little in the way of positional changes in a tightly-bunched midfield pack.
It meant he would take the flag where he had started as tenth-best Pro Class driver, with focus then turning to Sunday’s two races.
Having qualified 17th on the grid at the wheel of his Toro Verde GT-run car, Daniel was bidding to make up places at the start of race two when an incident at Druids resulted in the action being halted to allow marshals to deal with a stricken car.
When the action did get back underway, Daniel soon settled into a rhythm but it would be a similar story to Saturday’s race with overtaking opportunities at a premium within the pack. He would ultimately take the flag in twelfth overall as ninth best Pro Class driver.
That result meant twelfth on the grid for race three, with Daniel maintaining position when the lights went out at the start, and moved up a spot on lap 14 when he made the most of traffic ahead to find a way ahead of Josh Stanton.
Daniel’s forward progress continued as he fought his way up into the overall top ten and would eventually cross the line in eighth place to score his first points of the season in front of guests from The Swiss Link and Technology Desking.
Next up for Daniel is the quickest circuit on the calendar next month with round three taking place at Thruxton.
“Although the weekend had a tough start, I’m coming away from Brands Hatch feeling a lot more confident in the car,” he said. “We made some pretty big changes in terms of set-up this weekend and are moving in the right direction, and I feel a lot more at one with it now than I did at Donington. The improvements we made here will only help in qualifying going forwards, and that is vital because it’s a challenge when you don’t qualify as high as you would like to.
“The Carrera Cup is very competitive this season with a lot of top drivers, and when the times are so close, it is difficult to make up places – especially around such a small circuit. This weekend was all about staying out of trouble and working to make improvements, which I feel we did across the three races.
“We’ll be able to go and test at Thruxton before the next round which is going to be beneficial, and I feel confident that with the work we’re doing, the results will soon follow.”
