Daniel Lloyd insists that he will be ‘getting stuck in’ during Sunday’s three British Touring Car Championship races at Croft, with the Huddersfield racer aiming to ‘pay everyone back’ after his crash last time out.
Lloyd qualified his re-built Hyundai in third on the grid for the opening race in North Yorkshire, having been the best-placed Excelr8 Motorsport driver and less than a tenth of a second from pole.
It comes after a hectic two weeks for Lloyd, who has already managed to raise some of the additional budget required to help fund his shortfall of cash following the costly repair of his car.
“After all the hard work that’s gone in in the last two weeks, the goal was always to start where we left off and that was right up at the front and trying to fight for podiums,” Lloyd told TouringCars.Net.
“I’ve worked extremely hard to try and sort the situation out and the team have worked even harder, with sleepless nights and all the rest of it, trying to sort the car out.
“It’s a really nice payback for everyone. It’s incredible what they’ve done to that car. They’ve built it up from scratch.
“We didn’t know how the chassis would be because we’ve had to re-jig it, so until that goes on the track under some proper force, we don’t know.
“To get this kind of performance after what we’ve just gone through in the last two weeks is an amazing job by everyone.”
Lloyd says he is not feeling any pain when he is behind the wheel in his car, although he admitted to having some concerns leading up to the event.
“Physically I’m alright and in the car I’m alright – the adrenaline takes over. I was really worried before the weekend – we took the car to Turweston Airfield and every gear shift was sending a bit of a jolt through me.
“I was a bit worried going into shakedown, but then we got in the car on Friday, and I was absolutely fine and I got out of the car buzzing and said to everyone ‘let’s crack on now’.
“I think it was more the mental side of not knowing if I would be OK, but actually when I got in the car I was. It was absolutely spot on, and I’m just really pleased.”
The 30-year-old felt he could have even gone quicker and potentially claimed a first-ever pole, but on his third flying lap he made a mistake entering into the complex at the end of the lap.
“[The time] was there. I can’t lie. Part of me had thought it was there – but on the third run we caught a yellow flag, two lots of traffic, so it was a really scruffy third run, but it was definitely there. But everyone could say the same…
“I’m very pleased and very, very thankful for the team as well.”
Looking ahead to the races, Lloyd is hoping to be in a position to take advantage early on when the rear-wheel drive cars are still getting their tyres up to temperature.
“Colin [Turkington] will probably have a very good run off the start, so we’ll see how we get on into Turn 1. The BMWs take a little bit longer to switch the tyres on, so who knows.
“I’ll just get stuck in – I won’t be tippy toeing around – the goal is to get solid results and pay everyone back, so I’ll be getting stuck in.”