Daniel Lloyd enjoyed his best weekend of the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship season to date at Snetterton, with a pair of Independents’ class victories and two strong overall results in the third meeting of the campaign.
Huddersfield racer Daniel went into the weekend keen to battle back from challenging meetings at both Donington Park and Brands Hatch, where factors outside his control meant he had failed to secure the results that his pace deserved.
From the moment he hit the track for practice at Snetterton, Daniel was on the pace at the wheel of his Restart Racing-run Hyundai i30 Fastback N and ended the two sessions sitting second on the timesheets – meaning confidence was high going into qualifying.
Although he narrowly missed out on making it through to Q3, falling just 0.097s short, Daniel would set the seventh quickest time to give him his best qualifying result of the season and put him firmly in the mix for race day.
Electing to run the soft compound Goodyear tyre in race one, Daniel was on fine form in the opening race, battling with the similar Hyundais of Tom Chilton and Adam Morgan in the early stages before clearing the pair to move up into fifth spot.
Closing onto the rear of Dan Rowbottom in the final stages, Daniel took the flag in fifth for his highest result since rejoining the grid at the start of the season. It also marked a first Independents’ class win of the season for Daniel, with team-mate Chris Smiley making it a 1-2 for the team further down the top ten.
Sticking with the soft tyre in race two, and with three of the cars ahead now forced to run the hard rubber, Daniel was in a strong place going into race two and wasted little time in working his way up into second place behind Rowbottom.
Showing the pace of the Hyundai, Daniel went wheel-to-wheel with the Ford racer for the lead and nipped ahead at turn one, only for Rowbottom to fight back and reclaim the lead later round the lap at Hamilton.
The battle for the lead allowed Morgan and Chilton to close in behind, with Morgan making the most of an extra lap of turbo boost to get ahead and demote Daniel to third.
Although Chilton then grabbed the final podium spot before the finish, Daniel once again scored the Independents’ class win in fourth overall, with Smiley behind ensuring a second successive 1-2 for the team.
Forced to run the hard compound tyre in race three, Daniel was aware of the challenge of trying to remain near the front, but a strong start saw him grab second spot with a gap to the cars behind.
Unfortunately, the deployment of the safety car backed up the field behind and left him vulnerable to attack from the those on the soft tyre, and he was duly shuffled back down the order to finish the weekend just outside the points in 16th.
As well as climbing up the overall order, Daniel is now fourth in the Independents’ standings and helped Restart Racing to retain top spot in the Independents’ Teams’ Championship.
“It’s been an amazing weekend and I’m over the moon with his things went,” he said. “It’s like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders after two tough meetings and things were great from the moment we hit the track.
“The car felt better than ever and we were able to score our best result in qualifying and then picked up two really strong results. To go forwards to P5 in the first race was good and then we made more improvements for race two where the car mega. Getting into the lead for the first time this season was brilliant and there are a few things I could maybe have done different that would have allowed us to hold on. However, another Indy win was fantastic for both me and the team, and gave us a big haul of points.
“We got a good start in race three but the safety car ruined any chance of a result when we were on the hard tyre. I got knocked around a bit and slipped down the order, which is just how it was – and the fact we were second of the cars on the hard tyre showed we did what we could.
“That result won’t take away from a mega day on track, and it was great to do it in front of guests from DEVELOP, Prosynergi, Autobrite, Techology Desking and Calder IT. We also got mega TV coverage for all of my sponsors and have some circuits coming up that I really like, so I’m confident we can build on these results going forwards.
“A huge thank you had to go to the team for their efforts, and hopefully this weekend is just the start!”
