Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship returnee Daniel Lloyd was satisfied with a solid outing for Eurotech Racing at Thruxton, collecting a brace of top-10 finishes.
Previously enjoying a one-off outing for Triple Eight Racing at Croft back in 2010, Lloyd qualified 16th on the grid for Sunday’s trio of races at the Hampshire circuit before improving greatly to results of 12th, seventh and ninth in scorching Spring conditions.
Lloyd summarised his encouraging BTCC return, telling The Checkered Flag: “Overall, a solid weekend. We kept out of trouble and a lot of people have had a disaster this weekend.
“We’ve obviously had the issues with the tyres, but we’ve stayed out of trouble and scored some solid points.”
The adaptation back to a front-wheel drive touring car was one that the 24-year-old described as the biggest challenge of the weekend, Lloyd making the switch to Eurotech’s third Honda Civic Type-R, having become acclimatised to sportscars in recent years.
“It’s been more difficult than I thought it would be to be honest”, cautioned the former GT racer. “Having spent five years teaching myself to be patient and look after everything racing in GT cars, this is just the complete opposite.
“I still need to re-adjust my technique quite a lot. Things like the weight on the throttle for example when, in a GT car, you wait and wait and then go. Here, you have to pick it up as early as you can.”
Briefly sitting inside the top-three in the final race of the weekend, Lloyd ended the day a highly credible 17th in the overall Drivers’ Championship, tied on points with team-mate Martin Depper and sitting above the likes of double BTCC champions, Colin Turkington and Jason Plato.
A fall to ninth in race three was Lloyd’s only qualm, adding: “I’m pleased with it, but I was still a bit disappointed to drop from third to ninth that’s all. I really struggled in that last one. The car was absolutely mega in race two so I was just hoping for more of the same, but I just struggled with the front end really. I felt like I was getting picked off one by one.”
Lloyd’s next visit will be to Oulton Park on 4/5 June, a local circuit for the Eurotech man who admitted he is already chomping at the bit, saying: “It’s my local circuit, so I know it well and yes, I’m looking to forward to getting stuck in.
“The key in this championship is to qualify well. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite nail that one so I’m really looking forward to Oulton.”