Daniel Lloyd enjoyed his best weekend of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB season to date at Thruxton with a brace of top six finishes from the latest rounds of the season.
Having shown strong pace through Friday testing – where he ended up fifth on the timesheets in the first session before improving to second in FP2 – Huddersfield-based racer Daniel went into qualifying optimistic about producing his strongest performance of the campaign to date and so it proved as he put his Toro Verde GT-run car on the fourth row of the grid for the opening race.
A rocket ship start to the race saw Dan jump up into sixth spot off the line before he grabbed fifth going into the complex, only to then be run wide through the high-speed left-hander at Noble – dropping him back a spot.
From that point on, Daniel lapped solidly throughout to retain his position through to the flag, and would ultimately be promoted a position into fifth when Charles Rainford was handed a penalty for the move on lap one that had cost Daniel the position.
Daniel would line up in the same position for the start of the second race but lost out at the start when he was forced to back out of a move for fourth going through turn one and instead found himself losing a position having been forced to get out of the throttle.
Having then been overhauled by Matthew Rees on the run up to the chicane on lap two, Daniel became engaged in one of the battles of the race as he tried to find a way back ahead of his rival, making multiple attempts to find a way through to regain a place in the top six.
With just two laps of the race left to run, Daniel saw his opportunity to get ahead with a late-braking move to take the outside line into the first part of the complex, which then put him on the inside line for the second part – enabling him to slide through and take the position to the delight of the watching crowd.
The sixth place finish capped Daniel’s best weekend of the season to date, with the double score moving him to eleventh in the standings and within touching distance of the top eight ahead of the next event at Croft.
“We’re rally getting there with the car and had a much better weekend in terms of the results,” he said. “We got away well in race one and were up to P5 before I got pushed off the track and dropped back, but then he got a penalty and we ended up with the result we should have had. I got a good start again in race two but I got squeezed so tightly that I lost places instead of gaining them.
“I was struggling a bit with the tyres early on but when they switched on towards the end, the pace in the car was mega and I found a way past Rees with a good move at the complex and the speed was fantastic.
“The team did a great job and everyone stepped up to the plate. We had guest from Marc Webb and Technology Desking trackside to enjoy the weekend, and there was fantastic coverage on TV for DEVELOP, First Locate and my newest partner NUTRIEN®.
“We’ve got a bit of a gap now before Croft, so this was a nice way to head into the break and we’ll look to build on it when the season resumes.”
