Honda strong in the wet
Honda Racing Team showed how strong they are in the wet as they took the lead in the constructors championship as well as Matt Neal taking the share of the lead at the top of the drivers championship with rival Jason Plato.
Conditions at the Kent circuit last weekend were terrible with driving rain throughout the day which gave all the drivers a test of their wet weather driving abilities. Matt Neal ended the weekend on the top of the pile after capitalising on Plato’s misfortunes.
“We had to exploit our strengths where we could and while we had our problems in races one and two, the performance of the Honda Civic in the third race was amazing” said Matt Neal. “I made the choice to start on a mixture of wet and dry tyres and it turned out to be just perfect. I was able to pick off car after car and it was so close to a win. Overall, I am happy with the weekend’s work because although we failed to finish the second race we have shown that the car is strong on all kinds of circuit and in all kinds of conditions.”
Gordon Shedden was also pleased with how his weekend went at Brands. After Tom Chilton’s exclusion from race two, Gordon was on the receiving end of the closest finish in BTCC history after Tom Onslow-Cole narrowly beat him to the win by a mere 0.009s.
Despite narrowly missing out on a race win Shedden was pleased with the weekend. “This weekend has put me right back in the title hunt” said Gordon Shedden. “After having some good results taken away from me due to circumstances beyond my control in previous rounds, I really needed to kick start things here. We know we have got a really quick car and two second places have given me real confidence to push on from here. I am only 17 points behind Matt in the standings and it’s all to play for.”
Photo Credit: Pete Mainey (PSM Motorsport Images)
James Mappin
