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As the inaugural TCR UK championship approached its midway point in the summer, it looked like there could only be one outcome.
Dan Lloyd was unbeaten in six starts and had taken maximum points from qualifying with three pole positions. But over the next three meetings, there was only one further win for the Westcoast Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI and Lloyd was slapped with 30 penalty points – equivalent to a thirdplace finish – for robust moves at Castle Combe and Oulton Park.
The nadir came last month at Croft, a round Lloyd had hoped he’d be able to skip, when after finishing third in the opener, he retired with suspension failure in race two. Suddenly, Ollie Taylor’s Pyro Motorsport Honda Civic was in the running, just 31 points down heading into the Donington finale last weekend.
The contrasting mindset between the two drivers was clear ahead of Saturday’s practice sessions. Lloyd appeared tense, desperate not to let the title slip from his grasp. Taylor, in his first season of front-wheel-drive racing, was relaxed, treating anything he could achieve as a bonus.
Come Saturday evening, the tension in the VW camp was easing. Lloyd had scored his first pole position since the beginning of June at Brands Hatch and he would have his Westcoast racing team-mates, Andreas and Jessica Backman, between his Golf and Taylor’s Civic on the grid. With his lead extended to 35 points, simply remaining ahead of Taylor in Sunday’s first race would be enough to seal the title.
Lloyd duly delivered, and he did it in style with a dominant win, but not without having to withstand further tension first. Sunday’s torrential rain led to treacherous track conditions and racing was suspended for a couple of hours after a crash in the Mazda MX-5 Supercup.
“We had to wait so long, we didn’t know what was happening,” said Lloyd.
Now halved in length to 15 minutes, when the race finally got underway, Lloyd kept his nerve to nail the start and lead into Redgate. Taylor was also quick off the line, passing Jessica Backman and eyeing a move on her brother in the first corner, only for the rear to step out and send him through the gravel. Taylor slipped to seventh and faced an uphill battle to keep his title bid alive, but he’d climbed back to fifth by the end of the lap after Lewis Kent went off at Coppice and Taylor despatched Backman at Roberts.
Out front, Lloyd was taking command, building a 3.6-second lead over Andreas Backman within two laps.
“When you’ve got rivers going across the circuit, I know exactly where the rivers are because I’ve done so many days here [but] it’s not ideal when you’re the first one there,” Lloyd said. “First lap, I made sure I got round and then cracked on from there.”
By the time Josh Price had cleared Backman for second with a move at the Old Hairpin on lap five of 11, Lloyd’s advantage was over 6s. Price retired a couple of laps later, his Honda Civic having lost fuel pressure, and Lloyd stroked home to win by 17s. Taylor was unable to find a way past his team-mate Finlay Crocker, who completed the podium behind Backman, and the title was Lloyd’s.
“He showed his class there,” noted Westcoast team manager James Nixon.
With the title settled, the finale proved to be an action-packed affair, except at the very front. On his return to the championship, Price had struggled in dry qualifying with a ballast-heavy Fk2-shaped Civic following a win for Sean Walkinshaw Racing’s similar model last time out at Croft. But from the front row of the reversed grid, he outdragged polesitter Carl Swift (Cupra) and never looked back, claiming a maiden win by a dominant 18s.
Swift maintained second until past half-distance when he started losing his brakes, eventually fading to eighth. His Maximum Motorsport team-mate Stewart Lines took advantage to claim second, while Lloyd completed the podium after an eventful race. Rapid early progress from row five was undone after contact with Taylor at Mcleans on the opening tour and then with Kent a lap later. But the new champion picked off those in front with aplomb, including an aroundthe-outside move on Crocker in the Craner Curves, before securing third by rounding Andreas Backman at Redgate on the final lap.
Taylor meanwhile was sixth after a trip through the gravel when trying to pass Crocker on the outside line at Coppice early on.