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Joint-points leader Matt Neal fears ballast will hurt more at Oulton Park

Matt Neal heads to Oulton Park this weekend fearful that the 66kg of success ballast that he will be forced to carry through qualifying and at least Race 1 will hurt progress more than usual for him and his Team Dynamics-run Honda Civic Type R.

“Qualifying will be tough, especially as Oulton is probably one of the worst circuits we go to for ballast, with a lot of slow corners followed by long uphill straights,” said Neal.

“That certainly won’t make it easy for us, but everybody towards the top of the table is in the same boat. It’s so incredibly tight in this championship right now that you have to be absolutely on peak form and I need to remain realistic and focus on the long game, but if we can keep on racking up the points, we’ll be doing just fine.”

The three-time champion is counting on the handling of the Civic Type R to overcome the points-based allocation of ballast at a circuit which should theoretically suit the car, but the track has proven to be a bugbear for Team Dynamics in recent years, where they’ve not won since 2012, when Neal and team-mate Gordon Shedden won all three races between them.

“Oulton Park was one of the first tracks I ever raced at and I used to test there a lot,” said Neal. “It’s an enjoyable circuit to drive – very fast and not very forgiving, with not much run-off if you make a mistake and overtaking is notoriously tricky. It’s got a little bit of everything, which means you need a car with good balance and high-speed stability – a strong all-round package – and that’s where the Honda Civic Type R really comes into its own.”

Neal will carry 66kg of ballast as opposed to the usual maximum of 75kg as he shares the championship lead with West Surrey Racing BMW driver Rob Collard, meaning the pair will share the second-place ballast allocation at the Cheshire circuit.