Daniel Lloyd was left ruing his misfortune after a clash with Colin Turkington at the first corner during the opening British Touring Car Championship contest of the weekend at Croft left the rookie in the tyre wall, wasting a front-row start.
Lloyd had qualified second alongside the Ulsterman for the second consecutive meeting but was forced to take the outside line into the tight right-hander at turn one, leading to contact with the Subaru Levorg GT that sent the Type-R spinning into the gravel trap.
Turkington went on to the win the race ahead of team-mate Jason Plato and the MG6 of Ashley Sutton.
Lloyd was in a pragmatic mood about the incident when the dust had settled, and admitted that if given the opportunity again, he would have elected to duck back to the inside and lose positions.
“That’s the highs and lows of motorsport,” he commented.
“I’m kicking myself as I wasn’t expecting to get off the line so well. It was the best start I’ve ever had but it forced me to take the outside line.”
“It’s horrible out there as you have two options; go for it or stay wide and then let everyone fly past down your inside. In hindsight I should have taken the latter choice. It was just one of those things.”
The second race gets underway at 14:39.