Matt Neal pleased with Honda performance despite setbacks

Matt Neal was pleased with his Honda at Thruxton, despite an incident in race two and losing his championship lead.

The Honda Racing Team driver went in to the third meeting of the year with a full 75kg of success ballast in his Civic Type R, yet still was able to qualify third on the grid and follow team-mate Gordon Shedden home to a Honda 1-2 in race one. An incident with Aron Smith ended his second race, before a recovery drive saw the three-time BTCC champion take sixth in the final race of the day.

“Race one was just awesome for us,” said Neal. “Especially with this being a sort of home track for us with Swindon [Honda’s UK factory] being so close. I did rue a bit, it could’ve been better for me with the race two thing. It was great to come back to score some solid points if not a podium in race three.”

The Honda’s enjoyed strong pace and tyre management throughout the day, highlighted by Neal’s recovery to sixth from the back of the grid in race two.

“There was some pretty close racing out there,” he continued. “They were all defending like bears and my biggest problem all weekend was that our biggest strength was through the high speed stuff. The corner speed we can carry out the back, and when we’re in traffic we were just losing downforce off the front of the car. That made me give the tyres a hard time as well as not being able to carry the speed and five laps from home I’d really lost the front tyres. The car still felt good and everyone else was probably struggling at that point, but I couldn’t make the progress I could’ve done in clear air.”

Neal now goes in to the next round at Oulton Park third in the standings, carrying 57kg in success ballast, which he feels will be a major plus around the tight and twisty Oulton Park tarmac.

“I’m third now, it’d be lovely to have the bragging rights but if you’re not going to carry weight then Oulton’s the one to do it at. There’s a long way to go yet, we’re only 30% of the way in.”