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Neal aiming to defend championship lead at Oulton Park

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Honda Racing Team driver Matt Neal is hoping to defend his championship lead at Oulton Park, running with maximum ballast in qualifying for the first time this season.

The Honda Civic will be held back with an additional 45kgs of success ballast this weekend, as Matt Neal left Thruxton as the championship leader. Previously Jason Plato then James Nash lead the championship after the first two BTCC meetings at Brands Hatch and Donington Park respectively.

“The rules say that if you are leading the points, you have to have success ballast and that is going to be a real penalty around somewhere like Oulton Park,” said Neal.

“It is a fast, flowing circuit with lots of undulations and plenty of points where you have to accelerate hard – which is where the success ballast is going to hold me back. Despite that, I love the track because it is a real challenge and you have to be very committed.”

“One thing that we do have up our sleeve is that Oulton is about handling and we know that the Civic has a brilliant chassis,” added Neal.

“If we can exploit that and then maybe shed some of the success ballast later on then we will have a real shot at big points.”

Matt Neal’s lead in the championship is 12 points over Motorbase Performance driver Mat Jackson, with Triple Eight’s James Nash now third.

Neal’s team-mate Gordon Shedden is looking to continue to rebuild his championship challenge after a strong run at Thruxton after troubles at Donington.

“I have traditionally gone well there (Oulton Park) and the Civic is a great car for getting around the sweeps and the dips at the track so I am going to the races in a very optimistic frame of mind,” said Shedden.

“I only have nine kilogrammes of success ballast and that puts me in a good position to capitalise while the others are loaded up. There is lots of racing to be done and they have changed the rules again ahead of this meeting so I am expecting the competition to be strong but I am confident that we will be right in the mix as well.”