Ella Lloyd kept the Welsh flag flying high on foreign soil at the weekend, after finishing on the podium in each of the three F1 Academy races at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.
The Pontypridd native claimed a hat-trick of second-place finishes in between keeping her cool and producing some sublime overtaking moves at the home of the Canadian Grand Prix, closing the points gap to the top three in the overall standings in the process.
Determined to show her potential after seeing the previous F1 Academy round in Miami abandoned due to some unseasonal weather conditions, Lloyd was quickly up to speed on the deceptively tricky 4.4km layout situated between the St Lawrence River and the rowing basin constructed for the 1976 Olympic Games.
Buoyed by a top five time, just a handful of tenths off the ultimate pace in free practice, the McLaren-backed Rodin Motorsport driver briefly topped the times before improving one spot over practice in the lone qualifying session, securing the outside of row two for the final race of the weekend. Her other starts would come from seventh, as a result of the qualifying session in Florida, and fifth, due to the top eight drivers from the timed session in Montreal being reversed for the sprint race, ensuring a good shot at championship points from each outing.
Lloyd wasted little time in improving those chances, nailing the start of Saturday’s opening race to immediately move from seventh to fourth after going three-wide with the drivers starting ahead of her. When the front row pair then contrived to collide at Turn 1, the orange-and-black #20 inherited second spot and set off in pursuit of new leader Doriane Pin, eventually closing onto the back of her rival when the safety car was called to clear a stricken car from the wall at the final corner. Pin showed her greater experience at the restart, however, re-establishing a gap to Lloyd, who held onto second under pressure from the driver behind. A second safety car with just two laps remaining then froze the order, guaranteeing the Welsh driver a return to the podium.
Race two later in the day also featured several interruptions but, once again, Lloyd kept her head after another blistering start. This time, having almost gone three-wide into the opening chicane, she emerged in third place and was close enough to the top two that when second-placed Nina Gademan made a bid for the lead, the #20 could follow her through the gap she engineered. With the race able to run at pace for some time, the circuit’s long back straight came into play, allowing multiple changes of position due to the slipstream it enables. Unfortunately for Lloyd, she had no answer to either Emma Felbermayr or Alba Larsen, with whom she repeatedly swapped places before embarking on a thrilling battle with Pin as she defended third place. The almost-inevitable safety car arrived with three laps to run, but returned to the pits with the field needing to complete one further tour, and Lloyd was again quick to capitalise on a move for the lead, slipping through into second place at the hairpin and only missing out on victory by a couple of tenths in the race to the chequered flag.
The third and final race was a precursor to the Canadian Grand Prix itself and, in front of a fervent F1 audience, Lloyd repeated her two previous ballistic getaways, this time getting alongside second place through the opening combination of turns. The cars continued to bang wheels into Turn 3, where Lloyd came off best, but racing was negated at the end of the lap as the safety car emerged once more. Although she was dropped slightly at the restart, the McLaren protégé closed in quickly by resetting the fastest lap of the race, before another safety car interruption gave her the chance to show what she had learned by sticking with the leader when the field was released once more. Despite her best efforts to take the lead, Lloyd was undone by a third and final safety car period which, with the race clock expiring, led the pack under the chequered flag.
“I think we had a really good weekend, and I’m really happy with the way it went,” Lloyd commented. “We had strong pace throughout, and I matched my best qualifying performance of the season so far, so that got things off on the right foot.
“Obviously, in race one, I was starting seventh, but got a very good launch and just fought my way up. We had good pace in all three races, and races two and three went largely the same way: getting a good start — from fifth and fourth respectively — and then using the same move into Turn 1 to make up places straight away. I’m really happy to have come away with three podiums.”
With the F1 Academy on hiatus until Zandvoort in late August, Lloyd’s attention returns to her British F4 campaign, which is in action at Oulton Park in Cheshire this weekend (21-22 June).
