Hywel feels at home at forest Spa — F3 Racing with Hywel Lloyd

Hywel feels at home at forest Spa

Flying Welshman Hywel Lloyd feels right at home at legendary Belgian circuit Spa – the densely wooded track reminds him of his days working in the family business.

At Corwen Forestry the 25-year-old drove a massive machine very slowly – with CF Racing Lloyd is at the wheel of a 160mph plus Formula Three speed machine.

Spa, home of the Belgian Grand Prix, is the first race of the second half of the F3 International Series and Lloyd is buoyed up by a top ten finish in the last race at Rockingham this month.

He finished seventh after carving his way through the field from 15th on the grid and again showed the sort of race pace that could make him a contender at Spa.

“It’s like being back in North Wales at Spa,” he said: “It’s right in the middle of the woods but it is one of my favourite circuits and maybe the best of them all.

“It’s an F1 Grand Prix track and it’s got everything, especially those long sweeping bends and fast straights.
“The straights are so quick we have to reduce some of the downforce to get the most out of them and that means the corners are a bit trickier, more challenging, but it’s a brilliant place to race.
” CF Racing’s bugbear this season has been qualifying and Lloyd and his team, which is backed up by experts from Manor Motorsport who will be looking to put that right this weekend.
He said: “Spa has been good to us and we finished fifth there last year but we’re just trying to get the best we can out of the car.
“We had a seventh place at Rockingham which was encouraging but we still need to finds a bit more, especially in qualifying, to get up near the front.
“But we’ve got a few different things to try for Spa in an effort to find a few tenths of a second because that can make all the difference,”
Lloyd enjoyed the latest development in F3 at Rockingham where in the second of the weekend’s three races there was a compulsory pit stop – each driver had to come in once during the race and bring his car to a halt in the pits before rejoining the race.
“It was good experience,” he said: “We had practiced everything a few times to make sure we didn’t stall or speed in the pit lane but unfortunately we had clipped someone in the first race and gone off so we started from the back of the grid.
“The plan was to pit really early to get some clear track in front of us but three or four of the cars in front went in first and so we had to stay out longer than we had hoped but it worked well.
” There won’t be any compulsory pit stops this weekend at Spa so it will be pedal to the metal time for all three races in Belgium with two races on Friday and one on Saturday.
Lloyd accompanied his car over to Belgium on the transporter this week so was ready to go to work on it on Thursday morning for the first practice sessions on Friday.
He said: “There’s no excuses in terms of knowing the track because we’ve been here before and enjoyed it but we’ll enjoy it even more if we do well.”
It’s the start of a hectic spell for the young Welshman with the F3 caravan returning to the UK for a meeting at Thruxton the following weekend with Silverstone the week after that, Saturday and Sunday, August 14 and 15.

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