Pace still there ahead of qualifying despite FP2 tyre issue says Dan Lloyd
Brutal Fish Racing’s Dan Lloyd says both he and his Honda Civic Type-R TCR has the pace to challenge at the front of the TCR Europe field this weekend at Spa-Francorchamps despite a tyre issue in second practice.
Lloyd came into the weekend fourth in the standings after a retirement in the second race at Monza and a double non-score in Barcelona last time out.
But the British driver says he is “still firmly in the title hunt” this weekend after topping FP1 on Thursday.
“Since Race 2 at Monza when we had the puncture, we’ve been on a bit of a bad run but we were quick in FP1 yesterday which, okay it’s only practice but it shows that we are quick,” Lloyd told TouringCarTimes.
“I’m confident we can be quick this weekend, I know the car will be fast and it’s been very good balance wise so far.”
Although fastest in opening practice, Lloyd was only 18th in Friday morning’s second session after struggling with what he called “a bad batch of tyres”, hampering his progress.
Lloyd has six new tyres ahead of qualifying, which is expected to be a dry session.
“The tyres we used in FP2, I think they were a bad batch or something [which is], probably why we were that far down,” Lloyd added.
“We ran used tyres this morning but they were not from the previous round so I don’t know what condition they were in.
“For sure, it’s good to have this problem before qualifying, because otherwise we might have gone out in Q1 thinking ‘this is a used tyre but it should be alright’ and we would really have struggled.”