Oman Racing Team finished Sunday’s Blancpain Endurance Series race, the 3 Hours of Silverstone in 19th place. After this lower-than-expected result, driver Daniel Lloyd is turning his attention to finishing on the podium at the same track this weekend at the Avon Tyres British GT Championship event.
The #44 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Lloyd, Jonny Adam and Ahmad Al Harthy ended the second round of the 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series in 19th place overall, after struggling to make up positions from their P18 start. The car was fast throughout practice, but they were caught out in qualifying by weather, stopping the team from setting the time they could have posted.
“After a promising start in the practice sessions, qualifying looked to be going our way for once and we were in a strong P2 position for much of the session before we caught out by the change in the weather,” said Lloyd.
Lloyd took the car from the start and made his way up to 12th in the first hour. However, after his stint, a fault developed on the car, causing inconsistent lap times, which saw the Aston drop down the order.
“The standard on the Blancpain grid is so high that qualifying outside of the top ten really does massively limit your chances of progressing well in the race, but I was happy with my stint and managed to hand over the car to Ahmad in P12. Unfortunately the car then developed an issue that affected the ABS and Ahmad struggled to keep a consistent lap time;” he added.
“Jonny did well but again had a problem with the steering which meant we just dropped back again. It’s really frustrating as we went into the weekend thinking that we had a really good car but we just don’t seem to be getting the rub of luck in the Blancpain at the moment.”
This weekend, Lloyd and Al Harthy will return to Silverstone for another 3 hour race, this time as part of the British GT series. Following a second place finish at Rockingham last time out, the pair are in a good position to gain on the championship leaders.
“I’m looking forward to getting back out on the track again this weekend to put the Blancpain result behind us;” added Lloyd.
“Ahmad and the team had an excellent result here last season, and on paper Silverstone suits the Aston well so hopefully we’re able to put in another strong performance this weekend and keep the pressure on the championship battle.”
The Silverstone British GT round is scheduled to start on Sunday May 31 at 12:20.
