Early damage put a premature end to Ollie Taylor’s charge in the final TCR UK race at Brands Hatch, damaging the steering of the car and forcing him to drive around the issue to the chequered flag.
The contact knocked the steering out of line on board his Honda Civic Type R FK7, rendering the Pyro Motorsport driver a sitting duck.
Through incidents ahead he eventually came home fifth, cementing his second place in the standings overall, although race winner Daniel Lloyd is now nearly a century of points clear.
“I took a knock in the early laps and it put the steering out of place, I was having to drive at two o’clock to keep it in a straight line. I had no grip at all, couldn’t get the car turned in or stopped,” explained Taylor to TouringCars.net.
“I couldn’t attack anybody, I was just driving round really trying to get to the finish. I think I was in tenth at one point and then that progressively became fifth. Overall, that race wasn’t the best. I just didn’t have the car underneath me in that race and I think it was due to the contact.”
He was, however, in optimistic mood with the relative gap to Lloyd in most sessions smaller than at previous meetings after switching from the older FK2 model.
“I think the main thing to take away from the weekend is we’ve closed the gap to Dan [Lloyd], we’ve improved our pace this weekend in comparison. It’s only my third event in a front-wheel drive car and he’s been driving these cars for years, so he should be quicker.
“We want to beat him, he’s the benchmark now and where we set our goals.”
He believes even more progress might have been possible with testing on Friday as at other events, but conceded everyone had been dealt the same hand.
“It’s a shame we didn’t have a test on Friday, but everyone is in the same boat. I think we’d have learned even more about the car with a couple of tests.”
The championship heads next to Castle Combe over the weekend of 14-15 July.