Huddersfield’s Daniel Lloyd made a richly deserved and long-awaited return to the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship podium at Knockhill in Scotland on Sunday, 26th August, with an excellent drive to third place, from sixth on the grid, in round 14 of the season.
Marking the Team Parker Racing driver’s first visit to the championship rostrum since his round six victory at Thruxton back in April, the terrific result in the second of this weekend’s races – coupled with fifth place in round 13 – means he has closed to within just 16 points of the series top three.
“I’m really pleased to be back on the podium, it’s a great feeling as it seems ages since we were last there”, said the 20-year-old Porsche Carrera Cup GB Scholar, “Championship-wise we’ve come off the weekend quite happy, several of our main rivals have had some problems and we’ve been able to benefit from that. It’s all getting really close now – the last six races will be mega important.”
Qualifying on Saturday, 25th August, was impacted by the onset of heavy rain midway through, rendering the second half of the session irrelevant in terms of lap times. During his first run in the dry, Daniel posted the fourth fastest time of 50.990 seconds (89.75mph) which ultimately secured him a place on the second row of the grid for round 13 just 0.4 seconds shy of pole position.
Although making a good start, the TNT Post, TSD, Creechurch Private Wealth, Propack and TPA Yorkshire-backed driver hit one of the Knockhill kerbs very heavily which bent a wheel and led to him slipping back to seventh place.
Working hard to retain the position despite the damage, Daniel got ahead of experienced sportscar racer Andrew Meyrick on lap 14 to move back into the top six before the appearance of the Safety Car on lap 24. Then, at the re-start on lap 27, the action was swiftly red-flagged when Meyrick made contact with Rory Butcher at the first corner and Daniel was duly credited with fifth place.
Beginning round 14 from sixth position, the first year Porsche racer made another good getaway and managed to avoid the spinning car of championship leader Michael Meadows at the first turn to move into fifth place.
Daniel quickly gained another position through the chaos and on lap two passed Jonas Gelzinis for third before moving up to second as Sam Tordoff dropped back – the result of lap one contact with Meadows. Although hometown racer Butcher moved ahead of Daniel on lap three, the West Yorkshireman was happy with third which he held to the finish for his fourth podium of 2012.
“It all kicked off in the second race and got a bit messy at the start”, said Daniel, “I was lucky to get through without any problems really, we got up to second but I could see [Rory] Butcher was mega quick and he got me fair and square. Third was good though, I’m happy to be back on the podium and overall it’s been a pretty good weekend.”
Daniel now has a four week break from competitive action with rounds 15 and 16 of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship taking place on 22nd/23rd September at Rockingham International Super Sports Car Circuit in Northamptonshire.
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