Ella Lloyd made the long trip north for round seven of the Wera Tools F4 British Championship certified by FIA at Knockhill only to leave Scotland empty-handed.
Just a couple of weeks after securing a hard-earned podium finish at Zandvoort in the Netherlands, the Welsh rising star was handed a reminder that fortunes in motorsport can swing both ways as contact from other drivers denied her the chance to add to her burgeoning points total.
The notoriously tricky Knockhill layout proved to be just that as Lloyd and the Rodin team tried to nail down the perfect set-up for their Tatuus F4-T421, with the two free practice sessions being turned over to constant tweaking and tuning. With track conditions in FP2 not allowing any of the teams to get a final handle on settings, Lloyd and Rodin went into qualifying still chasing the ideal balance on the papaya-and-black #20 machine which, in such a closely-matched field, led to the 20-year-old claiming 13th place on the timesheets after a session interrupted by red flags.
“We had a small issue in FP1 which compromised the balance of the car and left it feeling a little bit loose,” Lloyd explained. “FP2 felt stronger, but we couldn’t really exploit new tyres to their fullest because there was oil on the track and that put us behind where we wanted to be going into qualifying. I think we struggled to find the right balance as a team and didn’t have the right traction in qualifying, so there was definitely more to come from the car.”
Lining up on the inside of row seven for race one, Lloyd made her traditional good start to make up early positions and quickly latched onto the multi-car battle for fourth place, before finding herself going head-to-head with Theo Palmer for eighth on the road as the chequered flag approached. Unfortunately, the pair got too close for comfort and the ensuing minor contact left the #20 car with damage, although Lloyd was able to make it to the finish in ninth position with the result being taken back a lap due to the red flags needed to recover Palmer’s stranded machine.
Frustratingly for the Rodin driver, she was adjudged to have gained an unfair advantage from the incident and was handed a combined five-place penalty when the results were amended, leaving her 14th and outside the point-scoring positions. With only the top 12 drivers involved in the reversed-grid process for race two the following morning, Lloyd was again destined to start from 13th on the grid and, with only 10 minutes of actual racing being possible around a lengthy safety car intervention, eventually crossed the line in 11th place, less than a second behind the current championship leader.
The third and final race of the weekend was no kinder to the Welsh star who, after yet another great getaway, found herself battling for sixth place, only for contact to send her into the pits, Although she was able to rejoin, Lloyd found herself in vain pursuit of points and, pressing on in the closing stages, ran wide into the gravel trap at the chicane, bringing out the red flags that ended the race.
“We had really strong pace compared to the cars around us in race one and, after a good start, I was able to fight with the drivers in front of me — until contact from someone behind me effectively ended my race,” she commented. “Race two was good in terms of being able to move forward, but the safety car period prevented much overtaking anywhere in the field — and race three was looking great until I got taken out at the restart by someone trying to go around the outside, which effectively finished my race well before the red flag.
“That said, I don’t think it was a bad weekend on the racing side, but struggling to find the best set-up for qualifying ultimately hurt us by leaving too much to do in each of the three rounds.”
Lloyd will miss round eight of the British F4 season at Donington Park as her F1 Academy commitments take precedent on the weekend of 30-31st August, when she returns to the scene of her recent podium finish at Zandvoort.
