Matt Neal: 25 years in the BTCC

The 1991 British Grand Prix may not seem like an event that would be highly significant to the British Touring Car Championship, but it would later prove to be the first time a crowd would witness a future BTCC legend compete in Britain’s premier tin-top series.

It was in the BTCC support race that the young Matthew Neal stepped in to a BMW M3 and the career of one of the most successful touring car drivers begun, and to celebrate the milestone, TouringCarTimes sat down with Neal a quarter of a century later at the place it all began – Silverstone.

“It’s gone quick,” Neal said. “It feels like 10 years not 25 years, I still feel when I get in the car today and in every race that I’m still learning, it’s only when you remember back at certain periods – and there’s certain periods I’d probably want to blank out my memory – but there’s been some cracking times along the way. We’ve had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs and a lot of tears.”

Neal has tasted championship glory three times in his BTCC career, taking the top title in 2005, 2006 and 2011, but when asked to pinpoint his favourite year, Neal struggled, with many seasons sticking in his memory.

“1995 with the Mondeo was a good year with the Rouse Mondeo,” he said. “1999 was obviously a cracking year, for different reasons. 2000 because we had a good car again even though the grids were dropping a bit. Coming back with the egg:Sport Vauxhall with Triple Eight was a good year, 2003 getting the first drive with Honda was pretty good and then obviously 2005 and 2006.”

He was similarly stumped when asked on his favourite car, but, unsurprisingly, seemed to have a soft spot for the Nissan Primera, coming from the “golden era” of the Super Touring regulations, which saw him take his first outright win in the BTCC at Donington Park in 1999 – the first independent driver to do so.

“I think for simplicity the 1995 Mondeo’s up there,” he said at first. “It was basic engineering, which was good from Andy Rouse, which he’d done. It was very simple.

“The Nissan was a completely different kettle of fish,” he continued. “Ricardo Divila was the main designer and it was a very technical piece of kit, it was great fun. Super Touring is held in a sort of special aura, but the category we have now, as Barry [Plowman, Team Dynamics Technical Director] said this morning, if we started our 25 year journey with what he have now you’re going to have a great time.

“People don’t realise how unfair and just how biased it was against independent teams and privateer drivers it was back then. You didn’t have the same tyres, same engines, anything. The tyres could be three seconds a lap slower, that’s why when we could get in to the top five we’d be doing backflips because it was like you’d swum the Channel. The first time we raced with the factory tyres was the race we won, in fact at the end of 1998 at Bathurst was the first time we got factory tyres and I couldn’t believe it, just what the others have been enjoying all the time.”

While Neal has enjoyed success, both for himself and helping team-mates reach the top spot, for a number of years, others have not been as kind to the 48-year-old driver.

“You’ve got to learn to roll with the punches,” he said. “Not every race, not every weekend, not every year is going to go your way you’ve just got to be able to keep your head up, keep your shoulders back and keep believing and working hard. You have to keep smiling really, through it all. I’ve had some rotten years where I’ve got out the car and I’ve kissed the floor and people are asking me what I’m doing and I’ll say “I’m kissing the floor because I never have to get in that car again!”

“It’s been horrific some of the cars I’ve driven and then other years it’s been really sad to know that that’s the last time I’m going to sit in that car again because it’s being sold, we have to sell our cars because we always needed the money to move on to the next level and on to the next stage.”

Neal’s career began just as the Super Touring regulations were being introduced to the series, and were the first of four different regulations that he has had to master over his tenure. After the Super Touring costs ballooned, with Prodrive reputedly having a £12m budget from Ford in 2000, changes were made and the cost-cutting BTC-Touring regulations were conceived.

BTC-T’s life in the BTCC was short lived, with many teams opting to run the Super 2000 regulations, conceived for the newly reformed World Touring Car Championship, which entered the BTCC in 2004. The current NGTC regulations were introduced in 2010, with Neal making the switch to NGTC with his family run Team Dynamics, where he was raced for the majority of his career, in 2012.

“I came in as a rear-wheel-drive person, not a front-wheel-drive,” Neal said, when asked on how much he had to adapt his driving style throughout the regulation changes. “I’d driven one make stuff but then I got into BMWs and Skylines and when I came in I was driving BMWs for the first few years.

“To start with it was easy because the cars just got technically better as the years went on for the first decade, and then they took a step back. I got into the first BTC car and thought “what the hell was this?”. It was so slow compared to a Super Touring car, but then the category evolved, S2000 was sort of similar to a BTC, we adjusted to the cars and NGTC, again when we first got in them they just felt so heavy compared to an S2000 car. But you get used to it. Now I say they’re great pieces of kit. They’re fun, they’re enjoyable and you have to push them right to the edge to get the last little bit out of them.”

Over the years in the series, Neal has been able to go wheel-to-wheel with some of the best touring car talent in the history of the sport, including the likes of Gabriele Tarquini, Alain Menu, Yvan Muller and Rickard Rydell, but who does he regard as the best driver he’s shared a track with?

“I don’t know, you can’t nail them down because in different cars they suit all,” he said. “But I always thought the most complete touring car driver and team player of all time was Steve Soper, he’s spectacular to watch and great to drive against, a good bloke. I think he was straight down the line, and a team player, he didn’t have to win – he was always a team man.”

In his time Neal has also, however, forged his share of on-track rivalries, none less than that with Jason Plato, perhaps one of the biggest rivalries to ever grace the BTCC tarmac. Their rivalry has come to blows in the past, almost literally in the Rockingham pit lane, with Neal believing that at times perhaps both parties are guilty of going slightly too far.

“There have been times over the last 15 years that it’s got pretty tense between us,” admits Neal. “But then the fans go away and they don’t see us, because we’ve all got to get on, but there are times that we’re properly at each other’s throats and we properly don’t like each other. I think we’re quite similar where we’ve been over the years. I’ve got a mischievous side of me so I’ll do things to wind him up because I think it’s funny and he’ll take it the wrong way. And likewise he’ll do things to wind me up because he thinks it’s funny and I’ll take it the wrong way and then suddenly it manifests itself from there. And we’ve both been near the front over the past 15 years fighting for championships. I think some of my fans have been very vocal with him, but likewise they have with me – it’s been quite comical, they really get into it.”

As Neal reaches his 25th year in the series, it seems an annual staple of the BTCC that rumours surface of his retirement, with internet forums constantly discussing the likelihood of hanging up his overalls in favour of a spot on the pit wall.

“I never want to make up the numbers,” stated Neal, who heads in to this season’s finale at Brands Hatch just 37 points behind championship leading team-mate Gordon Shedden. “I always want to feel like I’m contributing to the party. I think the partnership we’ve got at Dynamics with Honda at the moment is very good, it works well. As a partnership we get results, I’ve won three titles. Sure I’d like to get another and equal Andy Rouse but if it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come, I’m not going to cry about it.

“If we can still win the teams’ and manufacturers’ championships and I can help Flash win the drivers’ championship as well and we do it as a team, then it’s only like being another member of the team, we’re doing it together. The team and Honda is a bigger picture for me. But I focus on the now, we’ve got a deal in place for next year which requires me and Flash to be drivers – which is great, I’m still wanted. We’ll see how we go year on year, the programme we’ve got looks like a three year programme, which is great.”

While Neal is likely to be gracing the BTCC grid for the coming years, it is inevitable that one day he will have to step back, and with a number of future stars currently breaking through in the BTCC, who does the three-time champion feel could go on to become the “next Matt Neal” and enjoy a successful 25-year career?

“Joking apart I think Flash could become the greatest ever,” said Neal. “With his speed and his work ethic, how he works with us, he’s a good focus, he’s part of the family now and he’s already the most successful Scottish driver. I still know how to ring a time out of a car and go quickly but he is properly on the top of his game at the moment, and I think he could go a long way. There’s a lot more race wins and championships left in that boy yet.”