Daniel Lloyd has his eyes fixed on the remainder of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB season after a difficult weekend on track at Donington Park for the opening meeting of the new campaign.
Huddersfield racer Daniel headed into the weekend on the back of a tricky pre-season programme with his new Toro Verde GT team, with mixed weather conditions restricting him to just a single day of dry running at the wheel of his new Type 992 Porsche GT3 Cup machine.
That left the former British Touring Car Championship race winner firmly on the back foot going into the Donington Park weekend, but he was able to show his pace during testing to set a best lap that was just half a second away from the quickest time.
It would prove to be a similar story in qualifying, where Daniel would be unable to maximise his tyres when they were at peak performance but was only four-tenths of a second off the top ten.
Race day action would be delayed due to poor weather conditions, which ultimately resulted in just one of the two Carrera Cup GB races being run – with the aim being to reschedule the second for a new date later in the season.
In tricky conditions, Daniel avoided an incident at the Craner Curves on lap one as started to work his way up the order before the first of two safety car periods that would slow his charge.
Even with those two caution periods combining to take up almost half of the racing laps, Daniel’s strong race pace – which was comparable with second-placed finisher George Gamble – allowd him to work his way up into twelfth place overall by the finish, leaving him tenth amongst the Pro class runners.
Next up for Daniel – who was cheered on by guests from Develop, First Locate, Future Flooring, Green View Projects and Marc Webb Builders – is a trip to Brands Hatch in a fortnight.
“It’s been a challenging weekend as I’m still getting on top of the car,” he said. “The lack of dry running in pre-season means I’m not quite on top of getting the peak performance from the tyre in qualifying and when things are so close across the grid, it’s absolutely vital to be able to do that. The experience from having now run a qualifying session and having a better understanding of the processes is certainly going to help when we get to the next round.
“It left me on the back foot a bit for the race so to come from 20th to twelfth was good and the pace was strong, so if we were to go and do it all again, I think things would be a lot different. I’ve certainly been able to learn a lot. With that in mind, I actually think the cancellation of race two is a good thing for me because if they are able to reschedule it for a later date, I’ll be in a much stronger position than I would have been this weekend.
“Even with the awful conditions, my guests this weekend had a great time, and the whole experience around the Carrera Cup paddock and the access to the new Porsche Hospitality area was amazing for them. It’s just down to me now to take what I’ve learned from Donington Park and build on it going forwards so we can challenge for the results we are capable of.”
