After qualifying on the front row for the second consecutive time, Daniel Lloyd admitted he was “proud” of his Saturday performance at the latest Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship meeting at Croft.
The Eurotech Racing man finished just under four tenths adrift of pole-sitter, Colin Turkington, achieving the feat with a last-gasp effort in the truncated 30-minute qualifying session.
Lloyd later admitted that the lap was very much a do-or-die moment for his session, making crucial alterations that paid off in the final minute.
“It was a tough session”, Lloyd told The Checkered Flag afterwards. “There were quite a few issues with the car, which is why it came so late.
“When you go into qualifying, you can’t make many decent set-up changes because you’re lacking in time. You can alter it in terms of your strategy and if you’re crossing tyres, or what time you cross them.
“I took a bit of a risk and I gave myself one lap there at the end. It paid off and I’m quite proud of myself, because it’s really tight out there.”
Temperatures at the North Yorkshire circuit changed regularly during the day, leaving drivers including Lloyd heading into the unknown regarding set-up for qualifying.
“Today we’ve had good pace. It’s just a fact of track conditions changing during the day; it was so greasy this morning that you just have to adapt to it as you go along. The main thing was just to have the peace of mind going into that last lap.”
Despite his lofty position on the grid for Sunday’s opening race, Lloyd admitted that the pace of his RWD rivals may be too much for the Honda Civic Type-R to contend with.
“Tomorrow’s going to be tough”, he added. “Obviously, against RWD, I don’t think we really have much of a chance against the Subarus. Their ultimate pace is that much quicker, plus their big advantage is in race pace anyway.
“We’ll see. I’ll concentrate on my starts tomorrow and get stuck in.”
