Dan Lloyd continued his fine return to Restart Racing machinery at Silverstone, steering his Hyundai i30N Fastback to fifth on qualifying day as Chris Smiley suffered misfortune.
The penultimate weekend of the 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship campaign sees Restart Racing return to the site of victory in 2025, where Dan piloted the Hyundai i30N Fastback to the win in Race One around Silverstone National.
And Dan would start this weekend positively, too. A late run of 57.111 in Free Practice rewarded him with P7, as Chris posted a 57.705 on scrubbed softs for P19. In a tight session around the short 1.64-mile layout, the field would stay close throughout and only a second would separate P1 from P20 at the flag.
Both cars emerged in a tricky Group 1 for the traditional timed segment of qualifying, where a strong result would have to be earned the hard way. Dan challenged the upper reaches of the timing board throughout, eventually posting a 56.844 late-on to earn third in the group. Chris would also come close to that time, with a 57.032 scoring him an in-group eighth.
As times flowed in from Group 2, the competitive session resulted in Dan qualifying sixth and Chris 16th ahead of the Race to Pole.
Both drivers had a battling start to the Qualifying Race, with Adam Morgan pushing past Dan and Chris climbing to 14th by the end of the first lap – dispatching Ryan Bensley and Dan Rowbottom. However, after slight contact with Gordon Shedden on the exit of Luffield, Chris’ tyre delaminated and he was forced into the pits. To make things worse, Silverstone National’s short lap time saw our #22 lapped by the field by the time he could reemerge.
Dan would continue fighting Morgan in the meantime, getting past courtesy of a firm move at Beckett’s on lap two. While the pair would continue to scrap over the early phases of the race, a safety car-enforced pause gave Dan a calmer grip on his sixth-place position.
When running resumed, Dan defied pressure from Morgan to pull clear, before focusing his sights on Charles Rainford. Rainford had been just ahead throughout proceedings, but the Hyundai i30N Fastback was able to hold pace better over the distance of the race and made its move with three laps to go. Heading wheel-to-wheel into Beckett’s, Dan’s pressure forced Rainford into a mistake under braking and our #123 was able to out-drag its rival down the Wellington Straight.
Despite posting laps worthy of running at the front after his pit stop, Chris was only able to finish 22nd due to his lapped status. However, Dan would hold firm to keep his strong fifth-place finish on a day where Restart Racing showed plenty of promising pace ahead of Sunday’s three races.
Dan said:
“So we’ve just finished Saturday here at Silverstone, really good day.
“Strongest day back so far for me in the car. P7 in practice, P6 in quali. And then we managed to make another position in the [qualifying] race up to P5.
“Lacking in straight line speed today it’s a known thing, but luckily the car is mega. The team had done a really good job with it, really strong towards the second half of the race as well, which is good for tomorrow for the longer races.
“So we start P5, really happy, nice to be back at the sharp end and looking forward to tomorrow.”
Chris said:
“So that’s qualifying day done at Silverstone.
“Car in FP1 this morning was a bit of a handful. We made a massive change to it for qualifying and you only really get the true sort of feeling of the car in the second part of qualifying, and another tenth or so [and] it would have put us in the top five.
“So yeah, we started the Race for Pole in P16.
“I think at the end of the first lap it was P14, passing the car at Luffield for P13 and on the inside I had the slightest contact with the car on the outside, like it literally brushed off it, and unfortunately with the amount of lock you have in there it put a cut in the tyre.
“And yeah, ended up finishing a lap down in the in the Race to Pole, so a really frustrating day.
“We start Race One tomorrow effectively last, and a lot of work to do tomorrow.
“I think I’ve got a good pace. But, just really can’t catch a break at the minute, our luck this year has been unbelievable.
“New day tomorrow, and looking to try and get myself into that reverse grid for Race Three.”
