Gordon Shedden surprised to beat lighter cars in qualifying

Gordon Shedden expressed his surprise at qualifying on the front row as he expected to be beaten to the punch by the cars carrying less success ballast.

The Scotsman qualified the Honda Civic Type R on second, splitting the Team BMR party as Colin Turkington took pole position.

“It’s a bit unexpected really with nearly 40gs of weight in the car,” Shedden told TouringCarTimes. “It’s not plain sailing, it’s a good lap time but it’s still quite tricky to drive at the minute. I would’ve expected cars with no ballast to take pole and certainly make the front row but it hasn’t worked out that way. It seems very tricky out there, there were a lot of cars having problems and sliding around all over the place but we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m happy with the car, it’s a first front row for the new Type R and we’re in the game again which is what we want.”

Shedden took the first win for the new Honda at Brands Hatch en route to fifth in the standings, while team-mate Matt Neal took the win in the final race of the day to complete a Honda double. Starting from the front row Shedden now has a chance to add to the team’s tally and continue to keep his championship charge alive in the early stages of the season.

“We want to win, that’s where the big points are and as we saw at Brands you’ve got to get to the finish to get them. Fingers crossed we can get a good weekend and keep the points ticking on.”