Dan Lloyd surprised by bizarre lap deletion which cost him the front row

Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Dan Lloyd was left confused by a unique penalty applied by the stewards at the Hungaroring, when Lloyd lost both of his laps in Qualifying 2, after going off-track twice on his first lap.

The SEAT driver hadn’t had time to set a lap in Q2 before the red flags were out when Jens Reno Moller crashed his Honda at Turn 1. When the session restarted, Lloyd set a good first lap to get himself comfortably into the top ten, but the lap was soon deleted by the race director due to a track limits breach, leaving Lloyd to set a second lap which got him to ninth, and second for the reversed grid race.

The stewards then deleted that lap as well – which was soon confirmed as being because Lloyd had cut the track twice on his first lap, not because of any transgression on his second lap, with an official bulletin stating that drivers would lose a lap for each track limit infringement this weekend.

“The red flag came at a really bad time for me,” said Lloyd to TouringCarTimes. “I went off and I didn’t gain from it, but my second lap was safe so I should have been on the front row for the second race, so I’d have taken that.

“They’ve said because I went off twice on my first lap, it counts as two offences so they’ve removed second lap as well, even though there’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve never seen anything like that in motor racing anywhere, it’s really strange.”

With Lloyd effectively setting no times in Qualifying 2, he’s dropped to 12th for both of tomorrow’s races, but it’s likely he’ll be promoted to 11th with the damage to Jens Reno Moller’s car likely to see the Dane’s car withdrawn.