Daniel Lloyd has closed to within 30 points of the lead of the Independents’ Trophy despite a mixed weekend on track as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship headed for Thruxton for the fourth round of the season.
Huddersfield racer Daniel made the trip to the high-speed Hampshire circuit on the back of a double Independents’ win at Snetterton two weeks earlier, where he had also bagged his best overall result of the campaign to date.
It meant confidence was high heading into the weekend, and things started well in the opening practice session when he powered his Restart Racing-run Hyundai i30 Fastback N to the fourth best time in tricky, drying conditions.
Daniel then improved on his best time in FP2, and went into qualifying keen to try and make it all the way to the Quick Six shootout and the battle for pole position.
The British weather had other ideas however, and a torrential downpour left Daniel to face the challenge of driving the Hyundai in true wet conditions on new tyres for the first time in the session – resulting in him qualifying in 15th place for the opening race of the weekend.
Race day dawned with improved conditions however, although Daniel was unable to really show his pace in a tricky opening race where he found himself mired in the midfield pack. Making up two spots from his starting position, Daniel took the flag in 13th overall as third best Independent driver.
With the team making revisions to the car for the second race of the weekend, Daniel improved to break into the top ten, taking the flag just 0.040s behind the BMW of Daryl DeLeon following a drag race to the line – scoring strong points in the Independents’ standings in the process.
Having missed out on the reverse grid draw, Daniel therefore lined up on the fifth row of the grid for the weekend finale, where he produced his most competitive performance of the weekend as he quickly worked his way up into the the top six.
Taking the flag in seventh place, Daniel unfortunately dropped to ninth in the final result due to a five second penalty for being slightly out of position at the start.
Once again classified second in the Independents’ Trophy, Daniel emerged from the weekend having scored more points in the class than any other driver, allowing him to close in on his rivals ahead prior to the trip to Oulton Park for round five.
“Thruxton is a very unique circuit where you need a special set-up and we didn’t quite manage to nail it this weekend,” he said. “Despite that, we showed really good potential when things got underway in practice where we were really quick, but the weather threw a curveball in qualifying as that was the first time we’d run the car on new tyres in those conditions.
“We knew the car was better than P15 on the grid but we struggled a bit when race one came around and weren’t as quick as we expected, and I didn’t improve as much as I wanted to in race two. We made some big changes to the car for race three and it was a lot better, but I was slightly out of position at the start which meant I picked up a penalty.
“To still come away with P9 despite having five seconds added to my time shows how much stronger we were, and we’ve come away from the weekend with a really good haul of points in the Independents’ Trophy, even if I’d have liked to be a bit higher overall.
“Oulton Park next is more of a ‘normal’ circuit, and I’m confident we can be in the front pack and fighting for some big points.”
