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Matt Neal: Turkington is “the danger man” for the title

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Honda Racing’s Matt Neal believes 2009 champion Colin Turkington is a serious threat to Honda’s aspiration to retain the drivers’ title this season, following the form of the BMW 125i M Sport in the last few rounds of this year’s British Touring Car Championship.

Turkington won the first two races yesterday at Knockhill, and was in the running for victory in races two and three earlier this month at Snetterton before incidents with both Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan and then reigning champion Gordon Shedden saw him dropped down the order.

A fourth place finish for Turkington in race three saw the points gap between him and Neal down to 17 points, but the BMW was found to have breached its maximum boost allowance when the BTCC technical team examined the car’s data post-race and was disqualified, increasing the gap to 30 points. This gives three-time champion Matt Neal some breathing space heading to the last three rounds at Rockingham, Silverstone and Brands Hatch.

“I said before this weekend I think he’s the danger man,” Neal said to TouringCarTimes.

“The BMW looks very fast wherever we go, with weight, without weight, especially in Turks’ hands. And they’ll be quick at Rockingham because you’ve got two hairpins and that tight scrabbly bit at the last corner where they can put the power down…though they’ll (struggle) at Silverstone not having a TOCA engine.”

Neal believes it was still a good weekend for the Honda team, leaving with a six point lead in the drivers’ standings over the customer Honda of Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan,

“The car felt good, it was just the speed everyone else has got at the moment, and then the tyres seemed to go off as we were ringing it,” added Neal, who despite now holding a strong 54 point lead over rival Jason Plato in the standings, wouldn’t rule out the 2001 and 2010 champion just yet.

“Jason’s had a bad weekend, but he’ll get more boost because they’ve had such a bad weekend, so he’ll be very fast (at Rockingham). He’ll be back in it.”