Daniel Lloyd will make his debut in the Blancpain Endurance Series at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit on Sunday as part of the Beechdean Aston Martin Racing squad.

Marking yet another new challenge for the Scammonden racer, his arrival in the highly competitive Endurance Series – the world’s largest and most prestigious GT3 racing category – will be the biggest test of his career to date.

Joining reigning British GT Champion and Beechdean team principal, Andrew Howard, the duo will also be partnered for the Silverstone three-hour race by FIA World Endurance Championship Aston Martin racer Alex MacDowall.

While Howard and MacDowall are familiar with Aston Martin machinery, this weekend’s event will be the first for Lloyd at the wheel of an Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3.

However, he has had the chance to test the car at Silverstone – an experience he described as ‘amazing’.

“I’m really excited about Silverstone”, said the 22-year-old.

“It’s a new challenge for me, it will be my longest race so far, but it’s going to be great working with the Aston Martin Racing boy.

“It’s going to be such an experience being part of the Beechdean team on a full race weekend, it’s an opportunity to learn and make a good impression.

“We’ll have to see what we can do, it’s not going to be easy, but the Aston is known to be strong around Silverstone so I’m really looking forward to it – I can’t wait to get started.

“It’s really nice to go to a circuit I know for my debut in the Endurance Series, we’ll have a lot of guests at Silverstone so it’s going to be a very big deal for us.”

So popular is the high-profile Blancpain Endurance Series, the Beechdean Aston Martin Racing entry will form part of a 45 car grid at the weekend and, in addition to the overall battle, Lloyd and his teammates will race in the Pro-Am Cup class.

Following practice sessions tomorrow, qualifying will be held in Saturday and the race will get under way at 9am on Sunday.

In addition to the Silverstone race, Lloyd will also be part of a four-driver line-up for Beechdean in the Total 24 Hours of Spa at the famous Belgian track in July.

And Lloyd goes to Silverstone having impressed last weekend at Brands Hatch.

Racing in a McLaren GT3, Lloyd enjoyed his best outing so far in the Blancpain Sprint Series on the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit finishing the round two race netting a top 12 finish.

While very happy to have made good progress in the series opener at Nogaro in France last month, the category rookie’s mood was somewhat tempered having consistently lapped with pace good enough for a top 10 points finish at the very least.

“We’ve made a really big improvement, the pace was good, and much more competitive than the first round, so things are looking positive,” said Lloyd.

“We still need to do more testing and find more pace in qualifying but we’re all still learning, the team is learning more about the car each weekend and it’s obviously my first season too.”

The highlight was undoubtedly Lloyd’s performance in the qualification race where he took the second stint of the one-hour contest and helped to record a top 10 starting slot for the main championship encounter later in the day.

Lining-up in 16th position, teammate Sten Pentus took the first 30 minutes and climbed into the top 10 as the mandatory pit-stops began to be served.

He then pitted himself to hand over the No.61 Bhai Tech Racing car to Lloyd at the half-hour mark.

Rejoining in 15th place, Lloyd closed down the sister McLaren of ex-Formula One racer Giorgio Pantano and in the space of a couple of laps he had pulled back half a second on the experienced Italian. Soon after, though, the Safety Car was deployed due to a spin for the BMW of Alex Zanardi.

When the action resumed Lloyd climbed to ninth but Pantano made a late dive up the inside at Druids to leave the Huddersfield racer 10th at the finish – was just 0.4 seconds shy of ninth.

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