Ella Lloyd was frustrated in her efforts to score good points in all three races at the third round of the Wera Tools F4 British Championship certified by FIA at Snetterton over the weekend, but still managed to add to her championship tally.
The Welsh driver was rejoining the series after missing round two on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit while on F1 Academy duty in Miami, determined to bounce back from a disappointing opening round where she had twice been eliminated by contact after scoring in the first race of the year. The return of typically damp British conditions in time for a bank holiday weekend did not make things easy for the field of ambitious youngsters as proceedings got underway at the Norfolk circuit, however, with the track surface taking time to dry throughout qualifying.
“We didn’t have the best pace in testing as I didn’t find a setup I really liked,” Lloyd admitted, “and then qualifying was tricky with the track being damp. We ran one set of tyres but I didn’t cool them early enough and the rears suffered with thermal degradation so, when I pushed into Turn One on my next flaying lap, they couldn’t handle it.”
Although she would be restricted to 14th on the grid for Sunday afternoon’s feature race, albeit with a lap time still within a second of pole position, the 19-year old’s second-best lap, used to determine the line-up for race one on Saturday, saw her start a full row further up the order. That, however, left in the middle of the pack, where contact from another driver on lap two undid the improvement from qualifying, dropping the #20 Rodin Motorsport car to 19th on the road. Fortunately able to continue, Lloyd was subsequently able to show her pace as she made up places over the remaining nine laps, before time ran out with her circulating in a frustrated 16th position.
With her opening result subsequently upgraded to 15th by post-race penalties, and happier with her car than she had been at the start of the weekend, Lloyd went into Sunday morning’s reverse grid race in positive mood — and that showed with a blinding getaway in wet conditions that launched the McLaren protege into the top five… Again, however, Lady Luck wasn’t smiling in Lloyd’s direction as an ensuing red flag brought the race to an immediate halt, with the restart requiring the grid to form up in its original order later in the day. Another good start again appeared to put Lloyd in contention, only for an incident ahead to find her in the wrong place at the wrong time, boxing the #20 machine in and costing vital positions before she entertained the packed British Touring Car crowd by battling back up the order.
“In race one, I was hit twice by the same driver, but the pace was clearly good as I caught back up to the field and was able to make some overtaking moves,” Lloyd reflected, picking out the positives. “I then made a mega start to the first attempt at running race two, adapting well to the conditions to jump to P5 from P13 but, of course, the red flag cancelled that out!
“In the second attempt at race two, I again made a good start but, this time, someone ahead of me got spun around and, although I managed to stop and not hit anything, everyone behind was able to go past me. But, again, the car had good pace and I was able to overtake people once I’d caught up to the pack, which showed what we might have been capable of.”
Holding her position at the start of the third and final race of the weekend, Lloyd was quickly able to show that her grid slot was far from representative of her pace and, having already posted ideal sector combinations that put her fifth and ninth on the charts for the opening two races, she again proceeded to pick up places at will, moving into the points before half-distance and up to ninth by the end of the 14 scheduled laps.
“With a gap to the last race, we made a change to the setup of the car so that we could follow others better and, with more front end grip, it was definitely the best the car has felt,” she reported. “The pace was still there and I was able to pass cars ahead of me, so it was a decent end to an okay weekend. We just need to have some luck go our way...”
Lloyd will be back on track for round four of the Wera Tools F4 British Championship certified by FIA at Thruxton over 7-8th June, before heading off to Canada for her next outing in the F1 Academy series at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal the following weekend.
