Pyro Motorsport’s Ollie Taylor said he was delighted with his own performance after scoring his maiden win in TCR UK in race one at Castle Combe.
Taylor led the race from pole until the last lap when standings leader Dan Lloyd came down the inside into Quarry Corner and the pair made contact.
He told TouringCars.Net he felt it was a great race, and he was pleased with his pace and consistency.
“Overall, it was a great race,” he said. “I had a great start, I felt I had a really good first lap actually and then the safety car came out.
“I thought that was possibly a good thing just to lose a bit of time under the safety car, and 20 minutes was still a long time for a sprint race but that helped us.
“Main concern really was Dan [Lloyd] in fourth, but then I just got my head in and did qualy lap, qualy lap, qualy lap. From that point of view it was one of the best races I’ve driven, it was just on point every lap so I wasn’t losing time.
“So I’m really happy with my performance. Even when Dan got up to second, I was really happy with the gap. I made a couple of mistakes and I knew Dan was going to drive a pretty faultless race so I just had to keep my head down.”
“Then I just kept saying to the boys ‘How long left?!’ and it didn’t feel like it was going past too quickly!
Coming into that last lap, Taylor admits frustration nearly got the better of him before he settled for second at the line, before he was promoted to first post-race.
“So I thought it’s the last lap – don’t overshoot turn one! Braked possibly a little bit early but the next thing you know bang up the inside, Dan forced his way through,” said Taylor.
“Which angered me to hell – we were alongside each other into the chicane and I just thought fine I’m just not going to brake. But that’s not how I want to drive.
“So I refrained from doing that and came home second place, which obviously really frustrated me but I was quite confident the move was so dirty it was going to get overturned.
“So I just tried to stay calm, but it would have been really nice to live in the moment, first place, podium top step. It would have made it so different.
“But the club want the racing to be clean, and that needed to happen.”