Malaysia is the next destination for Huddersfield’s Daniel Lloyd as he joins the internationally renowned Craft Bamboo Racing team for round 7 of the GT Asia Series at the state-of-the-art Sepang International Circuit on September 4-6.
Lloyd will be joining current joint championship leader Darryl O’ Young in the #99 VLT branded Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 for the series’ first ever 3 hour event after receiving a last minute call up to replace the injured Jonathan Venter for the final three rounds of the season.
The GT Asia Series is the region’s leading GT Championship and features the very best GT3 cars in production from prestigious marques such as Aston Martin, Ferrari, Audi, McLaren, Porsche and Lamborghini. With over 30 international teams competing in the 11 round sprint series, the championship attracts top sports-car racers from across the globe.
“I’ve been looking for a new GT opportunity this year and have spoken with Craft Bamboo in the past about other championships and it just so happened that following Jonathan’s accident they needed a silver rated driver;” explained Lloyd.
“Being on the Aston Martin Evolution Academy with Jonathan and having just shared the Oman Racing Team car with him at the Spa 24 hour race, I spoke to Richard Coleman, the CEO who put me in touch with Darryl and it’s been a mad dash since Monday to get everything in place!”
O’Young and Venter currently hold joint lead in the series and this coming weekend is pivotal to keeping their title challenge on track. Despite the limited preparation time available Lloyd is quietly confident heading into the three hour race and looking forward to the tackling the unusual F1 circuit layout in the Vantage GT3.
“As it’s all come together so late, it’ll be straight into the car this week but I do get a chance of testing on Thursday and Friday before qualifying;” added Lloyd. “I know the Vantage really well from the British GT and Blancpain championships and I’ve been preparing as much as possible on the simulator so I feel sure that I’ll be up to speed straight away. The biggest test I think will be acclimatising to the 40˚heat and managing the tyres with the 60˚ track temperatures, but I’m up for the challenge.”
Lloyd continued; “This is a huge opening for me into a new championship and I’d like to say a massive thanks to the Craft Bamboo Racing team for the opportunity. The VLT team have done a great job getting to where they are at the top of the standings and I’m really looking forward to helping Darryl with his championship challenge.
“Obviously I’m gutted for Jonathan, it’s a driver’s worst nightmare to miss out on racing at this stage of a championship but hopefully I can do him and the team proud and I wish him a speedy recovery.”
Following two, 1 hour test sessions on Friday, qualifying for Saturday’s three hour race starts at 9am local time (2am UK time), with the main event scheduled to commence at 3pm local time (8am UK time).