IPS: Alex Lloyd completes mid season testing

June 14th - Alex took part in the Milwaukee 100 Open Test on June 14th in preparation for the race that is to take place there on July 22nd.

Alex was having an extremely successful test day and put in his quickest lap just after lunch, of 1min26.0. Conditions were consistently good and the track was just getting quicker as the day wore on. There were a lot of accidents on the oval which in turn meant that the recoveries took up a lot of the days running time.

Unfortunately Alex had to leave the track at 3.30pm, and so missed the final hour of the test which happened to be the quickest part of the day. This was when quick laps were put in by the drivers who were mostly on brand new tyres and low fuel, a qualifying set up. Alex finished the test day in third position.

"We were quick all day and our times on old tyres were good," said Alex. "We made steady improvements all day and gained good experience and knowledge of this short oval. I feel very confident for the race here in July."

June 20th -- The second of the 2 test days was held on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on June 20th, in preparation for the next round of the championship there on July 1st, the F1 weekend.

Alex was on race trim and old tyres when he put in a lap time of 1min26.55, which put Alex at the top of the time sheets by over a second. Like the previous test Alex had to leave with 45 minutes still to go, and when he did leave he was still the quickest at that point. By the time the chequered flag dropped Alex ended the day in 2nd, just a fraction off the fastest time.

"It was a shame not to have ended up 1st after being comfortably quickest all day, but this is testing not racing. We had some trouble after lunch and were unable to put in any sort of good time. We are unsure of the exact problem but it is possible that we had an off set of tyres or something as the car itself was fine. I'm sure that with low fuel and new tyres we could have finished the day as we started, being the fastest. I'm really excited about the race and looking forward to putting the good couple of days testing into practice on the F1 weekend."

-al-