Dan Lloyd was left lamenting another poor weekend in the TCR Europe series at Spa-Francorchamps last weekend, which has seen the Brit drop to fifth in the drivers’ championship standings.
Lloyd had led the championship for the first seven races of the 2020 season, but the Brutal Fish Racing driver lost the points lead in Barcelona earlier in the month.
Heading to Belgium, Lloyd had sought to move back to the top but instead the Brit has fallen even further adrift, only managing eighth in race one before a retirement in race two saw his points deficit grow to 48.
Having qualified in a decent fifth for race one, the weather came into play later in the day and Lloyd opted to run with slick front tyres and wet rear tyres in the race.
The gamble didn’t pay off, and Lloyd slipped backwards, although he still finished inside the top ten in eight.
Race two on Sunday was even worse for Lloyd. Contact with Target Competition’s José Manuel Sapag – for which Lloyd admitted partial responsibility – ended his race prematurely on lap two.
“A really disappointing weekend,” said Lloyd. “It started off well, being fastest in the dry in the first practice session. We struggled a bit in the wet in FP2 but brought it together in qualifying to snatch fifth. That was ideal.
“With mixed conditions on the drying circuit, we, unfortunately, went with the wrong tyre choice for race one and ended up P8.
“We went slicks on the front and wets on the rear, where others went full wets and that paid off.
“We made the right decision in race two and very quickly moved up the pack to P4. The car in front [Sapag] was hanging on for dear life.
“He slowed the car more than expected mid-corner and I ended up tapping him unintentionally which sent him sideways a little bit.
“Unfortunately, as he caught it he flipped back on, hit my wheel and snapped my suspension resulting in a DNF.
“I’m partly to blame for the tap, but the repercussions were huge. It was just really unlucky.”
Lloyd still heads to the season finale at Jarama in Spain in with a chance of the title, although the 28-year-old is aware that he is now an outsider for the title.
“I would have had a good chance of challenging for the win and still be in the running for the title. Instead, I’m fifth and gutted.
“I feel like things have conspired against us in the last couple of rounds. We just need to go to the last meeting in Spain do as well as we can and try to salvage a strong result to end the season.”