Shedden: “I’ve just circulated all weekend”
Gordon Shedden has hung on to a 15 point championship lead going to the season finale at Brands Hatch, but the Honda driver is very disappointed with the Silverstone weekend and hopes for a favourable boost tweak for the final round in two weeks time.
Shedden qualified down in 20th place, which became 19th following a penalty for Will Bratt, and took two seventh places and a sixth place to score 28 points and keep the lead of the championship after a strong weekend for rival Jason Plato.
After qualifying just four spots away from last, Shedden commented:
“It should never be that situation. In qualifying, leading the championship and qualifying 20th,” said Shedden to TouringCarTimes.
Team-mate Matt Neal similarly struggled, carrying 9kg less ballast but also driving with a broken hand, Neal qualified in tenth position.
“He got a fantastic tow to do his lap, apart from that he was doing the same times as me. It’s fairly obvious this weekend when you look at all the speed traps and when you watch on the telly where our deficiency is, it’s quite obvious it’s in a straight line.”
With Honda reportedly running the lowest boost setting, and on average the slowest car in the speed traps by 5-6mph down on the Fords and BMWs, it was anticipated that they would struggle at Silverstone, a known power circuit, which was good for the team last year and even better for Arena Motorsport in 2010, when as the top running turbocharged team they won all three races.
“Why should it be tough on us this weekend? People say it’s our bogey circuit, why should we have a bogey circuit when we’ve built the best car? Where’s everyone elses bogey circuit? It’s been very frustrating, but I’ve scored some points and given where I qualified, maybe that didn’t look so likely.”
“I haven’t passed anybody this weekend on my own merit, I’ve just circulated. OK, I managed to nick a little bit here and there off the start, but that was it, I haven’t genuinely passed anybody all weekend.”
Heading to the final round at the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit in two weeks time, Shedden goes in for the first time as Honda’s best shot for the title, with Matt Neal now 31 points adrift with just 67 points available, and hopes things will be more suited to the Honda Civic.
“Hopefully there’s a bit of a recalculation on the boost given how slow we’ve been this weekend, we should get a bit more, but we need a lot more because we’re just getting driven past in a straight line,” said Shedden.
BTCC Drivers’ Championship after Silverstone
