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Daniel Lloyd took his third race win of the 2008 Ginetta Junior Championship at Knockhill Circuit in Scotland this afternoon, Sunday, 17th August, during the 18th round of the season – the Huddersfield driver’s first ever visit to the Fife venue.
Lining up on the front row of the grid for the second of the weekend’s two Ginetta Junior races, having posted a time of 1m 04.926 seconds in qualifying on Saturday, Daniel made a good start to slot-in behind pole-sitter Dino Zamparelli and he immediately began to pressurise his rival.
Getting a tighter run out of the Real Radio Hairpin at the end of lap two, Scammonden based Daniel moved alongside Zamparelli up the hill into lap three and took the lead for the first time.
Keeping the then series leader at bay for the next couple of laps,16-year-old Daniel lost out to Zamparelli on lap five after making a mistake at Scotsman Corner. However, he instantaneously hit back and latched onto the back of his rival within just a few corners.
Lap six would be the turning point of the race when, under intense pressure from Daniel, Zamparelli had a spin and crashed out into the tyre barrier. Unchallenged from that point on, the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC) Stars of Tomorrow Scholarship Winner eased to his third on-the-road win of his maiden car racing season.
The Safety Car was deployed between laps seven and 11 and although the field bunched up behind Daniel for the two-lap sprint at the finish, he was never under serious threat and took the win by almost a second from former team-mate Alice Powell.
“It’s fantastic to win again, especially as we were so competitive all the way through the race”, said a delighted Daniel. ““I made a mistake at Scotsman Corner which allowed Dino to get back ahead but going into the fast right-hander at Carlube I pretended to put a move on him which pressured him into the mistake.
“I think I was quicker than Dino in the second race, when I was behind him I was just waiting there and I felt I could pull a decent move on him at several corners – I was just biding my time really.”
Sunday morning’s 17th round saw Daniel fighting with an ill-handling car and he eventually retired from the race on the final lap. Having taken the lead with a fantastic getaway from second on the grid, the Tockwith Motorsport driver was soon served with a 10 second time penalty having been adjudged to have made a jump-start.
Still running in first place on the road, with the corrected times applied Daniel was much further down the order and he had to push as hard as possible to extend the gap over his pursuers.
Pressing on in the lead, even though the rear of his car was proving to be a major handful, the Ginetta Junior rookie had a spin on lap 10 as a result of the altogether too lively back end on his Ford Zetec powered machine.
Recovering in sixth position, ninth place on corrected times, Daniel tried to limit the damage as much as possible but an unfortunate excursion on the 12th and final tour saw him retire from the race less than a lap from home at Scotsman Corner.
Daniel said: “We made some changes to the car in between races and they worked brilliantly in race two. If the car had been like that in the first race, the weekend would have been a lot different and we could have been celebrating a couple of wins. I was under a lot of pressure all the time in race one as the car was sliding around a lot.
“I was really disappointed not to win the first race but with the back end of the car stepping out all of the time, I really had to fight hard. As I pushed to make up the time after the penalty, I had a spin and that was it. We made amends in race two though so I’m happy.”
Daniel will return to competitive action just a fortnight from now, 30th/31st August, at Silverstone National Circuit in Northamptonshire for the 19th and 20th rounds of the 2008 Ginetta Junior Championship season.
Provisional 2008 Ginetta Junior Championship Positions (after Rd18):
1st Thomas Carnaby, 467pts; 2nd Dino Zamparelli, 455pts; 4th Daniel Lloyd, 327pts
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