Dan Lloyd stays on top in Austria as seven drivers are black-flagged
Dan Lloyd maintained his place at the top of the timesheets in final TCR Europe series practice at the Red Bull Ring on Friday evening, as several drivers again caught the eye of the stewards for repeated track limits abuse.
Having previously topped the opening practice session earlier in the day, Lloyd continued to showcase impressive form in FP2 to once again lead the way.
Lloyd’s best lap of 1m36.867s – albeit a tenth slower than his FP1-topping time – came after he spectacularly wrestled his Brutal Fish Racing Honda through the final corner, countering a wild slide.
That lap put the Briton 0.245s clear of Gilles Magnus’ Audi RS 3 LMS, and a further tenth up on third-placed Luca Engstler (Hyundai).
Gianni Morbidelli was fourth aboard his WestCoast Racing-run Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, while Davit Kajaia rounded out the top five in the leading Cupra.
Kajaia, however, recorded his time moments after being shown the black flag for multiple track limits infringements.
The same fate befell no less than six other drivers, with Martin Ryba, Stian Paulsen, Jimmy Clairet, Nelson Panciatici, Viktor Davidovski and the aforementioned Magnus all forced to return to the pits and sit out the session after cutting the track on what the stewards deemed to be too many occasions.
Like in FP1, the BoP-affected Peugeot contingent again struggled for pace around the Red Bull Ring, with Teddy Clairet the marque’s top representative in 23rd and championship leader Julien Briché only 24th.
Next up this weekend is qualifying, which takes place early on Saturday morning at 08.30 CEST.
