Alex Lloyd - 2nd Win of the Year and 2nd in the Championship!

[Bobie]

Alex Lloyd today won his 2nd race of the year which resulted in him now becoming 2nd in the British Formula Renualt Championship. All credit to him he has done a sterling job this year. Wonder if he will get to F3, I hope so.

[pb btcc]

well done Alex.

will be good to see him in F3 next year Don't know which class would be best for him.

[Bobie]

Don't scholorship is the way to go.

[littleman]

Unless he has the right budget and signs with a top team,he'd be better off doing Scholarship class in his 1st year and going for the £125,000 prize - he can win it!

[Bobie]

You are right he would win it, but would he then be overlooked for a top end F3 drive and end up doing another series in year two. Does anyone know if he has raised any money through this Isle of Man backing scheme?

[Gaz]

I think one or two are getting a bit carried away over Alex. Too me he has had a relatively good year but should have done better. To me he should have been up there with Rossiter at every meeting. Yes Hamilton was long gone and we couldn't expect Alex to match him but he really should have been on par with James. James seemed to easily hold the best of the rest slot for the second half of the year (bar Oulton).

I know Alex had a bit of bad luck in qualifying mid-season but to me in his second year, with the same team he should have done better. Fair play a dominant win today but Hamilton wasn't there and Rossiter was at the back and Sisley had quit the championship leaving the only other genuine season long frontrunner being Mike Conway who has had very indifferent year

Hope he can move up to F3 and prove me wrong though. Scholarship is certainly the way to go. Who says Scholarship champs will get overlooked for top drives erm...Robbie Kerr, Adam Carroll (certainly all the top teams want him he just don't have the budget).

[Jensen]

Well done Alex.

[Mr Jinxx]

I suppose I should shut up and say nothing, but I think Alex has done supremely well.

In qualifying, to put together 2 laps within 2 hundredths of his theoretical best, when all the other top runners were miles away. To get 5th on Saturdays wet race was just purely staying calm in a ****-slow car and waiting for retirements in front of him. I thought that was pretty mature, in truth

To get runner-up/Vice Champion/2nd in the championship by winning today was the best way to do it, even though yet again he wasn't quickest.

I won't really argue with you Gaz, although I think it was a bit harsh! At almost every meeting Alex has had a problem which compromised his speed or qualifying or testing time or something. He came 2nd in the championship, that's good. But how many poles? None. How many fastest laps? None. The car was not competitive in itself. But 2 wins and 8 or 9 podiums, and significantly quicker than his team mates all year. Motaworld have a good car in the dry and struggle terribly in low-grip situations. As I said, with Alex being 1 sec off the pace and Susie and Mike Spencer being nearly 3 seconds off the pace on low-grip-Saturday, he has actually worked wonders this year.

I don't think you will find too many people who think Alex could have done much better this year. He performs under pressure. The car has been visibly evil-handling many times this year. You may blame Alex for not having been able to set it up well enough, and I have a bit of sympathy with that, but in truth, the reality is that there isn't the testing time available unless you can afford to go abroad. Motaworld are on the up, and after this winter testing, should be genuine contenders next year. I truly don't think the car was quite on a par with Manor or Fortec this year, but it should be there come the start of next season. I hope so - they deserve it.

[Garaputo]

Alex did well but Paul Di Resta was the man this weekend, what a performance. He's Lewis for next year. I mean, wow!

[fantasytoca]

Well done Alex. A determined young driver who genuinely does work hard - let's hope he gets a good F3 drive next year.

Well done to Di Resta but I need more convincing that it wasnt just that JVA have an excellent wet set up that put him on pole.

Felt sorry for Byrne for going out of race 2, would have been good to see him complete the race given his performance in race 1 - equally sorry for Ben Reeves and Daniel Welch - it seems some drivers just carry bad luck with them.

[Freddie]

I think Alex did a good job this year but he always seems to have a problem with the car which concerns me. Motaworld have been around for a long time and my personal view is that Alex has not been giving good feedback on the set-up. No doubt he is quick and capable under pressure or not. But unless you have the intellectual side to work with the engineer to get the best out of the car, you will not win championships. Congratulations on the win anyway.

As for Di Resta, a fantastic couple of podiums and a great performance this weekend. Good to see another rookie showing the more experienced boys how to do it abd he will be very strong next year with Manor.

Also, a great job by Mike Conway. It was good to see him back on form with 2 podiums and congratulations to him for higheat placed rookie despite a problematic mid-season. I can foresee great things from him next year.

Roll on the winter series.

[Fulvio]

What are the final championship points? The RenaultSport Uk site is always late....

[Mr Jinxx]

Thanks Freddie.

The problems with the car this year were twofold. One was just genuine things going wrong on it - things that are unfortunate. Like the gear linkage breaking in qualifying, and the steering rack breaking in qualifying and the fuel pickup blockage at Thruxton and the dodgy coil last time out at Donington, etc. That's not bad preparation, just bad luck.

But Motaworld do have a problem with low-grip set-ups, and by the time they truly identified it, there just isn't enough time to test the different setups.

Alex's feedback was good, actually, but his engineering knowledge is not to an engineer's standard yet. He can't tell you how many clicks of rebound damping you need at Donington, etc. But I bet he is better than any other 18 year old out there, as he has had first hand experience of most things going wrong! You learn so much through time and experience.

He can tell immediately if they have gone the right way or wrong way on setups, but this has been very definitely a learning year for the team - witness Susie's remarkable increase in performance since they started down the line of a radically-different setup. Alex and Susie could drive it, but Mike Spencer could not, and so he stuck with the old setup. The new one is the way to go, for sure, and that is why Susie outperformed Mike so comprehensively in the last few outings. Intellectual ability is one of Alex's great strengths, if you ask around (I suspect he gets his abillities from his father). Ask his engineer, Alan Mugglestone - they may not have found the perfect low-grip setups yet, but they are working very well towards it, and I'm sure that over the winter, Motaworld will crack it.

As to Paul Di Resta and JVA setup in the wet, there has to be a bit if truth in both views. Charles Hollings was 4th in race 1 for JVA, for example, and his top speed was rather special all weekend. So they had to have a bit of a good car for the circumstances. But on the other hand, if we set aside outright performances, Paul was quicker than Charles Hollings, and so that is an indication of his prowess. He did well to keep Mike Conway behind him in race 2 as well.

Next year, if Mike Conway stays, and Susie stays with Motaworld and Mike Spencer learns how to drive the sensitive car (he will be quick if he stops chucking it around and starts being smooth), and Paul DR stays in a competitive seat, it will be pretty tight at the front again!

[Mr Jinxx]

Actually, he explained it quite well himself

http://www.renaultsport.co.uk/champi...?ArticleID=427

[bella]

i didn't think di resta was that great. he was helped by a top notch wet set up, and once it dried out he lost a bit of pace but i reckon part of it is it's a bit easier to stay up front than it is to overtake to get up front (if that makes sense).

i have two, well, 3 people to make noise about. that brazilian guy who drove for manor (allam kho... something), he was good. learnt the track quick. then there was john byrne. very impressive yet again, unlucky to not finish. then there was brandon thomas, in the first race he set 4th fastest lap after starting last on the grid (binned it on the warm up lap) and spending most of his race de-misting his visor. ended up 8th, which was a very good effort, good wet weather set-up or not.

back onto the proper topic (alex worship ), good pace throughout all the dodgy wierd conditions and the dry bit yesterday, but no-one's left out anything i was going to say so i won't repeat. as for next year, i personally wouldn't hang around cause 3rd year you really have to win it or everyone thinks you're a chimp...

[Paul Rayner]

It was an... interesting weekend, but feel that it would be a fool who used performances over it to judge next year's frontrunners.

Paul di Resta got a 1st and a 2nd, and there's no doubting that some of that must be JVA's wet set-up - the only other time they've hit the front this year was a wet Silverstone test, when Glew was fastest, with Hollings 3rd. I don't want to take anything away from Paul though, given the right car in qualifying he made the most of it, and set some impressively consistent times in a wet race.

Alex Lloyd did win but, with Rossiter, Hamilton & Sisley out of the way, he should have done. With his "less than ideal" Motaworld wet set-up, Alex did pretty well in qualifying, and he did what he needed to. At the end of the day (or season), Alex may have been outpaced by Rossiter, but he kept his cool, remained consistent, and got enough points for the "I beat everyone except Hamilton" award.

As for next year's frontrunners, we'll have to see what the winter series brings, but Conway, Stoddart, Spencer, di Resta, and Soderberg (if he does it again) could be contenders.

Got to agree with bella, Brandon Thomas did damn well in a wet race, coming from the back to 8th. Storckenfeldt also did well, gaining 6 places in one lap, going from 12th to 3rd in the race! If only we could have a few more wet races in the year, it always puts some different names up there...