But I think it’s ‘swings and roundabouts’: Maybe a lot of teams want British drivers and you might be the first pick - being a British driver with a lot of British speaking teams - but at the end of the day you’ve still got to have that money, and that’s what a lot of the British drivers are struggling with compared with the non-European drivers.
They seem to have more luck in raising sponsorship out there. But who knows, in a couple of years it could all turn around and we could find it a little bit easier.
Q:
You won the Autosport Young Driver of the Year award a couple of seasons ago, did you expect that to perhaps open more doors for you - or at least make it a little easier to find sponsorship?
Alex Lloyd:
We did - and in all honesty the award is supposedly worth about £250,000 in what you should be able to get in sponsorship, having won the award. But having spoken to a couple of the recent winners - we didn’t get anything through winning the award at all - and a lot of people have been struggling with that.
A lot of people blame it on September the 11th, and I don’t quite understand exactly why that would make so much of a difference, but since about that sort of time companies aren’t willing to put in the risk of sponsoring somebody in motorsport - and that’s just the way it is.
So winning the award was great for me in terms of hype and getting my name known in the motorsport world, but it didn’t help by the time of the first race because we still had no money. So in that respect it didn’t get me where I want to be, but it’s a fantastic thing to have on your CV and its something that you can go to teams now and in the future and people will look at you more seriously.
So I think it’s more of a prestige award rather than the amount of doors it actually opens.
Q:
Were you a little surprised to win the award? You weren’t Formula Renault champion that season, but you obviously impressed the judges during the evaluation days. Was it a surprise to hear your name called on the night of the Autosport awards?
Alex Lloyd:
It was to be honest. I’d kind of convinced myself that it wasn’t going to happen. I knew that I had a realistic chance, but you do the evaluation days and you’ve got no idea - I knew that I’d driven the car to the best of my ability - but you’ve no idea what anyone else has done.
