Gordon Shedden on the NGTC Honda and new BTCC season

Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden were among the BTCC stars at the Autosport International Show. Also on display at the show was Honda Racing’s two-time manufacturer’s championship winning Civic, with the team building a new NGTC version for this season. TouringCarTimes spoke to Gordon Shedden, voted by our readers as the best BTCC driver of 2011, at the show about the new car and upcoming season.

TcT: Have you had a look at the new car?
“I was down on Wednesday and had a bit of a look, but to be fair there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

TcT: When do you think it will be on track?
“Mid to end of February at the earliest I would think. It’s quite interesting because I know that we’ve been working on this car since the tail-end of last year, but you know with the rumours of all the other new cars these guys have got a hell of a lot of work to do in the next couple of months to get those cars ready.”

TcT: Have you got an extensive testing program planned?
“Once we get it running we obviously need to try and get out as much as possible, but it’s important to try and get the car right before we start testing. We could rush our car out but we’ve always taken the mindset, even with last year’s car and the Integra, where we’ve generally been quite late at putting it on track. We’ve done the homework to start with to try and make the car right from the word go.”

TcT: Will you and Matt both be involved in the on track testing and development?
“Two heads are better than one as they say. We’re lucky that we do drive in a very similar way in terms of how we like the car set up so it saves the team a bit of a headache because it means that whatever one of us says the other one is backing it up. It’s not like you’ve got to take one development route with one driver and a completely different route with the other. So that does help the guys back at the race shop to make the car suit both of us. It’s not uncommon for us to jump from car to car. He [Matt] can drive mine I can drive his… well I need a bit of padding to make it to the pedals, but it means we can cover a lot of ground technically.”

TcT: Are you looking forward to getting back out on track?
“Absolutely! You know it’s kind of strange in one way it feels like so long since the end of last year and in another way it feels like it was only a few days ago. So it’s nice to be here [at the Autosport Show] seeing everything again and you start thinking it’s about time. I had a little bit of a break over Christmas and New Year and it’s time to get back in it.”

TcT: What will you be using as your benchmark for the new car?
“I think we just need to make sure we get the car right to start off with. Jason [Plato] will have an NGTC car this year so he’ll be right in the mix. Obviously all the teams that had the NGTC cars last year have picked up a lot of experience. So you don’t quite know where the competition is going to come from until you get to that first qualifying session at Brands Hatch in April.”

“Obviously we hope to be right in the mix. We’re not there to be trundling around, we’re there to be winning the Championships and that’s 100% the aim, but I’m sure it will be tougher than ever. You look at the last couple of years and the competition just gets tougher and tougher and it’s coming at us from all angles. So I think it would be naive to just concentrate on one team or one car. I think they’ll be competition from up and done the pit lane.”

TcT: Do you think they’ll be some new drivers at the front of the field this year?
“You just never know how much people improve over the winter. It was five of us that went to the last round with a chance of winning the Championship last year and I wouldn’t be surprised if miraculously TOCA makes sure there are six or seven drivers with a chance of winning it come the end of this year.”

TcT: Will those who started building their cars later have their Championship chances affected do you think?
“It’s going to be competitive that’s the thing. With three races in a day you can’t really afford to have a shocker of a weekend. It really does affect you but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that someone comes out on day one and wins with a new car. That’s what everyone’s trying to do and there are a lot of clever people and a lot of really experienced touring car teams so they’re very capable of doing that.”