Photo: PSP Images

Neal the man to beat at Brands, says Collard

By

Matt Neal is the man to beat as the BTCC prepares for to visit Brands Hatch according to Championship rival Rob Collard. Having won twice at Rockingham last weekend, Neal is now second in the standings, and Collard believes the Honda driver will strengthen his Championship challenge this Sunday.

“I think Matt will be the man to beat this weekend,” Collard told the official BTCC website. “Overall, that Honda is the best car on the grid at this moment as a complete package. At Thruxton and Rockingham in every session and every race it is right up there whereas everyone else is a bit up and down.

“It’s got good straight line speed, good handling, good durability and is very strongly built. He had one difficult race in race two at Rockingham when he took on success ballast but I’m not so sure that was all down to the extra weight as he’d had pretty much the same at Thruxton and was still flying…”

Collard lies down in seventh place in the Championship, 41 points behind leader Jason Plato, in part thanks to his race three clash with Neal at Thruxton that saw Collard removed from the lead.

“Hopefully my bad luck has happened early and now I can have a trouble-free run. I’ve won on the Brands GP track before and I won around Brands Indy in a BMW as well last year. In the past, the Brands GP lay-out was ideal for the BMWs, but I’m not so sure that’s the case at present. Some of the front-wheel drive cars have become extremely fast, particularly in qualifying trim.”

Like Mat Jackson in the Airwaves BMW, Collard believes the advantage is now with the front-wheel drive machinery but that doesn’t mean he’s giving up on race wins or even a Championship tilt.

“In some ways we’re almost resigned to writing off qualifying and re-thinking our strategy so we come on strong in the races,” said Collard. “I really started to get a good feel and balance with WSR’s BMW at Rockingham. I don’t think it’s over by a long way. If we all dig deep as a team then I believe we can fight our way back into the top three by the closing stages of the season.”

While Collard Senior is racing at Brands Hatch, this weekend also sees another Collard in action, with Rob’s eldest son, Ricky, competing in a European Championship KF3 kart race.