Dan Zelos ‘exceeded expectations’ in ‘fantastic weekend’

Dan Zelos ‘exceeded’ his expectations in his second weekend in the British Touring Car Championship, with the EXCELR8 Motorsport driver securing top ten finishes in all three races at Silverstone.

After a strong BTCC debut at Donington Park last month, Zelos got a second chance to prove himself in the UK’s top championship at Silverstone.

In an increasingly wet qualifying, Zelos not only progressed beyond Q1 but then through Q2 as well to earn himself a chance in the ‘Quick Six’ Q3 session.

Initially posting the sixth fastest time, venturing out for only three laps, Zelos was later sent to the back of the grid for the opening race after failing the post-session ride height checks.

Despite that setback, in the opening race Zelos gained four places on the opening lap and was up to 11^th by mid-distance, passing 2012 World Champion Rob Huff and then gaining tenth when BMW’s Adam Morgan spun in front of him, taking the chequered flag in that position.

The Norfolk racer was as high a seventh in race two, but ultimately had to accept eighth after Morgan got past.

In torrentially wet conditions in race three, Zelos prevailed to take sixth at the chequered flag in challenging conditions, having run as high as fifth at one stage. Unfortunately, he was later penalised two places for contact with Huff, demoting him to eighth.

“What an absolutely fantastic weekend,” said Zelos. “First of all, I was so happy just to be back out again to carry on living my dream.

“It felt like a long few, ‘will we, won’t we’ weeks since Donington Park, but I had amazing support from Team Bristol Street Motors, and together with my family, we worked really hard to bring some new partners on-board and make it happen.

“Going into Silverstone, I knew the car a bit better, which meant I could start thinking about all the areas where I needed to focus on my driving.

“I felt in a really good place, and my primary objective was to try to do my bit to help the team in the battle for the championship titles.

“After the constantly changing weather at Donington, I felt equipped for whatever was thrown at me – although I didn’t expect to get through to the ‘Quick Six’ in qualifying in only my second weekend in the BTCC! That was incredible, and I surprised myself a bit there – the Macklin Motors car was really singing for me throughout the session.

“Unfortunately, on the one ‘flying’ lap I got in Q3, I made a small mistake by hitting a kerb too hard and broke the wishbone, which was what caused the ride-height issue.

“That was gutting and a big setback, but I’m here to learn and we knew we had good pace, so I went into race day with nothing to lose and looking forward to getting my elbows out and getting stuck in again.

“My goal was to make up as many places as possible – we could only go forward, and we did exactly that. To come through from the back of the grid to finish inside the top ten in race one was unreal, and then race two was another brilliant result.

“I wanted to go home afterwards because I honestly thought I couldn’t improve on that, but to come away with a trophy following race three was just an awesome end to the weekend.

“The conditions in the last one were the worst I’ve ever seen – it felt like we needed a pair of oars! I dropped a few places early on because I was aquaplaning in a straight line and was continuously losing the rear – that was really sketchy. I could hardly see where I was going, but my engineer kept me calm over the radio.

“We had such a quick car after the re-start – the Hyundai felt phenomenal again, absolutely on rails – and we kept on moving forward.

“We definitely exceeded our expectations. I couldn’t have asked for anything better, although it did make me wonder what might have been possible if we hadn’t been put to the back of the grid after qualifying – and I know there’s still so much more to come.

“Honestly, I’m over-the-moon. We’re not a family with lots of money behind us, but results like this clearly help.

“We worked 24/7 after Donington and we weren’t sure if Silverstone would happen, but it did. Miracles do happen. We’ve had a couple come our way recently – maybe they come in threes…”