Ella Lloyd showed her skill behind the wheel as she bounced back from a worrying looking incident in the F4 British Championship to gain eight places at Brands Hatch.
After a strong showing on her single seater debut at Donington Park, the Welsh teenager proved overtaking might be difficult, but isn’t impossible on the fast, undulating, and challenging 1.2-mile Kent circuit.
In qualifying on Saturday, 11th May, she and the JHR Developments team tried a slightly different strategy, leaving the pits earlier than most of the rest of the field for the final run. Unfortunately, this meant when Ella was on her push laps the was traffic as other drivers were slowly warming their tyres, leaving her further down the grid than she’d hoped.
Aiming to capitalise with a good start to the opening 20-minute contest, she had to be alert as several drivers were caught out by the lights going out quite quickly, avoiding a stalled car as she built up speed. However, as she pulled through the gears, Ella was unsighted as she came upon another slow starting car and couldn’t avoid making contact at speed.
Veering right at the last moment, her left wheels collided with the other machine, lifting and tilting the car to almost 90 degrees, before landing and going into the tyre barriers. Thankfully she was unharmed in what was a scary looking incident and was able to compete on Sunday thanks to the team’s efforts in repairing her car.
At the start of race two Ella had a fantastic first lap, gaining eight places, showing that passing is tricky but can be done on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit, to run 13th. As the field equalised and the best performance of the tyres was gone, she was unable to climb into the top 10 but can be satisfied with a strong showing.
For the final contest she had another good start but quickly found she was locking her front right tyre, which turned out to be a puncture. That, coupled with an unidentified engine problem was enough to hamper her progress and caused her to finish the race in the pits.
Though her results didn’t reflect her speed behind the wheel, Ella and the JHR Developments team know from the data that she is driving well and that a couple of small adjustments will bring the reward in lap time. She will next be able to put that to the test at Snetterton in Norfolk, over the weekend of May 24-26.
Ella Lloyd commented:
G1 – 21, R1 – DNF
G2 – 21, R2 – 12
G3 – 21, R3 – 20
Championship: 11 (15 points)
“In qualifying I had a lot of traffic. We came in earlier than everyone else [during the session] and when we went back out, drivers were warming their tyres and I was trying to push, so it just didn’t really work out. We looked at the data though, and we know that there’s far more pace in me and I’m doing everything right.
“In the first race, I had a really good start. The five second board went up and the lights came on and went out quickly, so lots of drivers weren’t prepared. Two cars stalled, but I had only seen one as there were yellow flags by that one. I was in-between two cars and could see the car in front moving, but by the time I got there it was one of those things.
“We had a good start [to race two] and I made up quite a few places, and there was an incident as well, which helped me gain a few more. It was quite hard to overtake after that. We had another good start for the final race and made up a few places on the first lap, but I think we had a puncture from the first lap as I kept locking the front right because the pressure was dropping. We also had an engine problem, which the team are looking into, but I’m sure we’ll be in good shape for Snetterton next.”
