LLOYD BATTLES TO MAKE IT SIX WINS FROM SIX RACE SIN TC R UK
Renault became the seventh manufacturer to be represented on the TCR UK grid as Alex Morgan’s Megane joined the fray at Brands Hatch last weekend.
The Swiss Wolf-power Racing team is running the new Vukovic Motorsportdeveloped car in TCR Germany, but teething trouble at the Oschersleben opener led it to skip the next round. Instead, it went back to the test bench, before travelling to the UK in preparation for the third round of TCR Germany this weekend.
“We didn’t seem far away at the Balance of Performance test in Valencia, but when we got to Oschersleben we had a few issues with the power delivery and the driveability of the car,” says Morgan, who was runner-up in the 2013 Renault UK Clio Cup and drove a SEAT for WolfPower in TCR Germany last year.
“It was clear that we were not even in the same ballpark as the other cars. We were down about 11kph. There were some issues which meant the engine would sacrifice power to save itself.
“The development [started] last year but after Valencia, when all the [homologation] details came through, we had to do a lot of reworking and, for some reason, the system just didn’t work as we were expecting.”
Developing a car in public is not easy, as DPE Motorsport has also found with its pair of Alfa Romeo Giuliettas ( see racing news). Performance may not translate from test-bed to track as solving one problem can unmask another.
“We see it on the dyno, we are close to the SEAT now,” says Wolf-power team boss Adrian Wolf. “It’s a big, big step forward. The data looks great today in the morning, but after four laps he started to push more, and after that we had a powersteering problem and boost problem.
“Maybe we need too much power for the power steering so the power box says, ‘thank you, not with me,’ and cuts everything. So you have 200-andsomething horse power. Alex did a really good job with the laptime [in qualifying] because half of the lap he has not [even] 300bhp.”
Morgan qualified 12th of the 14 cars, then made several pitstops during the races as he struggled to manhandle the car, allowing the team to perform further systems checks, eventually retiring from both. But he is convinced that it will be worth the effort.
“It’s been difficult for us to do actual car set-up work because we’ve been so down on power,” Morgan says. “I’m hoping now we actually start to unlock a bit more of the potential of the car because if you look at the build-quality of it, it’s absolutely fantastic – I’ve not seen anything like it.
“Things that I think will make the car better, Milenko [Vukovic] is more than happy to just get on the case and start developing. We’ve got to go through this phase now because it’s not as tried and tested as the SEAT but it’s just a matter of time and persevering.”
At the head of the field, Daniel Lloyd continued his dominant form. The Westcoast Racing driver took his Volkswagen Golf to another pair of victories, stretching his winning streak to six races. Lloyd didn’t have it all his own way, though, as first Ollie Taylor – in his new FK7 model Honda Civic – and then Carl Swift (Cupra) gave him a good run.
In the opener, Taylor moved ahead as Lloyd bogged down from pole position and was nudged into a half-spin by fourth qualifier Lewis Kent’s Hyundai i30n at Druids. But the Yorkshireman hung on and chased the leader down, catching Taylor by surprise with a move at Clearways on lap five of 36. He then managed to build and sustain a twosecond lead while struggling with tyre pick-up. Behind them Kent secured a maiden podium from Lloyd’s teammate Jessica Backman, who benefited when Josh Price’s Honda Civic lost power on the final lap.
In the reversed-grid race two, Lloyd carved through from ninth to challenge polesitter Swift. The Volkswagen dived inside at Graham Hill Bend, only for Swift to hit back at Surtees. Lloyd finally completed the move with an outside pass at Druids three laps later, but the tenacious Swift had impressed with his pace and racecraft. Sadly, he had no reward as later contact with Andreas Backman (VW Golf GTI) at Druids ended both their races.
That promoted Jessica Backman to second and Howard Fuller (Honda Civic) to third, maiden podiums for both. Taylor’s threat had been blunted by early contact knocking his tracking askew, while Kent went backwards with a return of the tyre delamination issues he suffered at Knockhill.