Matt Neal happy with “bragging right” of series lead

Matt Neal says topping the standings gives him “bragging rights” but nothing more at this stage of the season, after emerging as clear series leader following the Donington Park weekend.

Honda Racing Team’s Neal came into the meeting tied at the top of the standings with Triple Eight Racing’s Jack Goff, and struggled to 17th in race one on full ballast and soft tyres.

But he chased down Team BMR’s Colin Turkington to finish a close second in race two, before emerging victorious in a breathless race three. Neal now leads Turkington by two points going into Thruxton in three weeks’ time.

“How many times have I been here before?” joked Neal to TouringCarTimes. “It’s lovely, but it just means bragging rights for three weeks.

“Race three was frenetic. With about five or six laps to go I saw Flash come onto the back of the pack after the safety car and I thought ‘should I try and get him through’, as he had the best chance with no weight.

“And then I got a gap on [Andrew] Jordan, so I just got my head down. It was backwards and forwards, doing someone and getting done. It was pretty busy out there.”

Looking back on the day as a whole, Neal added: “We struggled on the soft with the weight, but on the hard it came back alive again. The car was just awesome through the quick stuff, and it was where we could gap a few people.

“It helped us gain a bit of an advantage when they would pull us back later round the lap with the weight.

“You had to be really committed through the quick stuff.”

However, there remains a question mark over Neal’s final weekend score, following Triple Eight Racing’s decision to protest the result of race three following contact between the Civic Type-R and Andrew Jordan’s MG6.