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Lloyd valiant effort in the valleys
Fighting 7th place for daniel
The 5th round of the Stars of Tomorrow took the competitors to Llandow in Wales. But Daniel wasn’t thrilled with the Welsh weather after it changed for the third time in as many days … and the last time, was just when he least needed it to - “If it’d have been dry, I would’ve won. If it had rained, I would’ve won. What happens? It’s neither!”
With a dominant display in Friday testing - when in torrential rain and on his first lap, he was ½ a second a lap faster than the entire Junior Rotax field - Daniel’s confidence was justified, “I’d not raced at the circuit for two years and on my very first lap back there, I was quickest by far.”
But after Friday’s heavy rain, Saturday was warm, sunny and dry. Again, the Scammonden youngster was quickest all day - “We went back to the hotel in the evening feeling rather pleased with ourselves. In both conditions, we believed we had the best kart set-up.”
However, throwing back the curtains of his hotel room on Sunday morning revealed a return to cats and dogs conditions. In the heats, Daniel illustrated his mastery of the track and conditions by taking 2nd, 6th and 1st respectively - clinching pole position for the final as he did so.
And then it stopped raining…
“The track started to dry but by the time of my final, it was neither fully dry, nor wet. In those conditions, you need an intermediate tyre, which is a used wet weather tyre. It was too wet for slicks but using new wet tyres would’ve been equally useless. All we had were my wets from Friday, which were shot. We had no choice but to bolt them on.”
At the start, Daniel’s disadvantage showed and he lost the lead to Kalvin Quinn - but a lap later he’d simply driven round his tyre handicap to re-take the lead. He lead for a handful of laps further but soon found that he had little or no grip whatsoever. For the second half of the race, Lloyd grimly hung on and was able to take the chequered flag in a fighting seventh place. Back in the pits, the toll on his tyres was clear to see – the treads had worn off and they were now slicks.
“Seventh was a good result, all things considered. Overall, the weekend’s been very enjoyable, fantastic. I’ve taken a good haul of points and improved my championship position but to be honest, I think I’m out of the running for the title.”
But with the pressure now off his shoulders, Daniel thinks he can still spring a surprise or two - “The leaders will be going for points finishes and not trying any heroics. Which means I can go for wins. So you never know...”
Will he do it? Keep visiting to find out.
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17.07.07 - Lloyd valiant effort in the valleys 02.07.07 - Lloyd suffers from lack of pressure 26.06.07 - On the podium with Wigan peers 17.06.07 - Lloyd downbeat - despite taking 3rd place 14.06.07 - Unkucky 13th for Lloyd 13.05.07 - Dan's parade rained off |
