Richard Lloyd formed his public relations business, Motor Race Relations, in 1971. In 1978, he established GTi Engineering, initially running Volkswagen Golf GTIs and Audi 80s. The team later became Richard Lloyd Racing in 1985 as Lloyd moved into the World Sportscar Championship with Porsche 956s and 962s.
In 1977, Lloyd competed in the British Saloon Car Championship with a Volkswagen Golf GTI, finishing third overall in 1977 and second in 1978. In 1980, GTi Engineering switched to Audi 80 GLEs. Lloyd recruited drivers such as Stirling Moss and Martin Brundle for Audi machinery.
In 1981, GTi Engineering began running a Porsche 924 Carrera GTR in the World Sportscar Championship. The team made its international debut at the 1981 1000 km Monza, finishing eighth overall and second in class.
In 1983, Richard Lloyd Racing obtained a Porsche 956 for Group C competition. The team achieved podium finishes at Silverstone, the Nürburgring, and Mugello. In 1984, Jonathan Palmer and Jan Lammers took the team's first World Championship victory at Brands Hatch, winning by two laps.
Richard Lloyd commissioned designer Nigel Stroud and aerodynamicist Peter Stevens to develop extensively modified versions of the factory Porsches. The 956 GTi featured an aluminium composite honeycomb monocoque. In 1985, the team achieved a second-place finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Lloyd, Palmer, and James Weaver driving the #14 Porsche 956 GTi, finishing three laps behind the winning Joest Racing entry.
The team transitioned to 962C machinery for 1987, retaining the custom GTi specification. Additional victories came at Brands Hatch in 1986 and the Norisring sprint event in 1987.
By the late 1980s, escalating World Championship costs impacted the team's viability. The 1988 season was affected by sponsorship changes. The final season in 1990 ran with a single car entry, primarily driven by Manuel Reuter, James Weaver, and Steven Andskär. The racing team closed after 1990 due to insufficient funding.
Following the demise of the team in 1990, Richard Lloyd returned to racing, driving and winning in the Porsche 924 Championship. In 1995, he established Audi Sport UK to compete in the British Touring Car Championship with support from Audi. The team later became Apex Motorsport and ran the Bentley EXP Speed 8 program in 2001, achieving a third-place finish at Le Mans. In 2003, Team Bentley, with Apex Motorsport's preparation, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In 2007, Apex Motorsport made a deal with Jaguar Cars to develop a Group GT3 car based on a Jaguar XKR. The team raced these cars in the FIA GT3 European Championship and British GT Championship. Richard Lloyd died in an airplane crash on March 30, 2008, while travelling to the Nogaro Circuit in France.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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