Ollie Taylor turns TCR UK title fight on its head after strong Croft weekend
Ollie Taylor ensured the TCR UK championship title fight will go down to the final round at Donington Park after a dramatic victory in the second race at Croft, while points leader Dan Lloyd had a dismal meeting.
It was his second win of the season after breaking his duck at Castle Combe earlier in the year, combined with a close second place to Andreas Bäckman in the opening race, leaves Taylor just 31 points adrift of Lloyd heading into the final round.
Lloyd arrived at Croft with a 78 point championship lead over Taylor, and was on target to wrap up the title over the course of the round, but a five-place grid drop carried over from Oulton Park following contact with Stewart Lines, and a broken damper in Race 2 resulted in a much reduced points lead.
It is, in effect, a 70-point turnaround for Taylor, who profited from a 30 points championship penalty for Lloyd and the Volkswagen driver’s DNF to keep the title fight open.
The big winner of the meeting was undoubtedly Andreas Bäckman. The Swede was switched from his regular WestCoast Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR to the Sean Walkinshaw Racing Honda Civic Type R FK2 TCR during the week, as the team elected to field drivers in both the UK series and STCC this weekend.
Bäckman repaid the favour by sensationally taking his maiden series pole position by virtue of being the last driver over the line at the end of a wet-dry qualifying session on Saturday.
He then converted his pole into his first career victory in Race 1, beating Taylor and Lloyd to the top step of the podium.
Bäckman was unsurprisingly delighted with his maiden triumph: “It was definitely not [an] easy [race]. I pushed with everything I had all of the time and I was worried, especially in the beginning and also at the end.
“I saw Dan was catching Ollie but I just tried to do my own thing and keep the tyres alive until the end.”
He then backed up his performance with a fighting third place behind Pyro Motorsport’s Finaly Crocker in Race 2.
While there was joy for some at the top, frustration filtered down the sparse field of eight cars.
Darelle Wilson’s running was largely curtailed by a series of problems, starting first with Race 1 contact with Lewis Kent’s Hyundai i30 N TCR. A broken steering rack prevented what would have been a front row starting spot for the second race and a chance for points.
Kent showed encouraging pace throughout but clutch problems in the first race and a puncture in Race 2 made sure the youngster left Croft disappointed again.
That allowed Jessica Bäckman to leapfrog Kent back into fourth place in the points table. The sister of Andreas didn’t quite have the pace to be a podium contender in either of the races, but fought well with Crocker for fourth in Race 2.
The final round of the season takes place at Donington next month, with Lloyd remaining the favourite to take the inaugural TCR UK Touring Car Championship drivers’ title. He will need to hope that reliability is on his side if he is to have a smooth run, otherwise Taylor may just be in a position to snatch the unlikeliest of championship wins.
