Ollie Taylor says that the inaugural TCR UK title is Dan Lloyd’s to lose after the Pyro Motorsport driver took victory in the second race at Croft, slashing the gap to just 31 points after Lloyd retired from the race.
Taylor secured his second win of the season with a lights-to-flag victory, whilst Lloyd retired from the race when the front-left damper on his Volkswagen failed on the opening lap of the race.
The result has given the Honda driver a huge swing back into the title race, and he heads to the season finale having finished on the podium five times in the last six races, compared to Lloyd’s four podium finishes.
Taylor admitted afterwards that he had not expected to take so many points out of Lloyd’s lead at the North Yorkshire circuit.
“I came here planning to give it my all and to not worry too much about Dan,” said Taylor to TouringCars.Net. “Qualifying was near-perfect, and then in race one I got good points.
“But then race two was perfect – off the line and to the flag. We made a drastic setup change between the two races, which meant that I still had the car fully underneath me at the end and I had still had the grip, because in race one after four laps I didn’t have the car beneath me.
“I managed the race from start to finish, which was exactly what we needed to do.”
Taylor is now targeting a maximum point score at Donington Park, buoyed by showing strong qualifying and race pace at Croft.
“We can’t do anything more than just try our best and get the results. We want to go for pole and to get two wins [at Donington].
“It’s Dan’s to lose, and as long as we’ve gone out and done as much as we can then we know that there’s nothing more we can do than that.”
Ahead of the next event, Taylor will take to the TCR Europe series at Monza, and he believes the extra seat time in the car will only benefit him more.
“I’m really looking forward to Monza. It’s always good experience. We’ve gained momentum at every round this year so far.
“There’s always a bit of a learning thing, so we’ve gained momentum and we want to carry it on to the end and take as many points away from Dan as we can and give it our all.
“Dan started off the year on form, as he’s done TCR racing before and more touring car racing, so he was well up in his game. It was new to me, and like everyone else on the grid, we’ve been learning all the way.
“Everyone has gathered momentum and I guess that Dan has just maintained his level whilst everyone else around him has improved.
“We’ve come away from every round learning something and developing. We’ll take the fight to him as much as we can at the last race.”