Series leader Matt Neal content to bag the points
He may not have finished on the podium at Oulton Park, but Honda Racing Team’s Matt Neal still left the Cheshire circuit with his championship lead intact.
The triple champion took two fourths and a sixth, and now leads Honda stable-mate Andrew Jordan by four points going into Croft.
Neal said he was satisfied to get points on the board, but remained frustrated with the boost issue, which continues to dog his team, as it so often did in 2012.
Speaking after the final race, Neal told TouringCarTimes: “I can’t believe I got to the end of it. It was kicking off everywhere. I think it is a combination of starting the slower cars at the front, and giving them more boost. You can’t get past, they just drive around the inside.
“Two fourths and a sixth is not particularly spectacular. I’m a bit disappointed because I think the car was better than that in the last one.
“But I’ll take those. It’s points on the board.”
It was a race which featured a spectacular incident for Neal, Colin Turkington and Andrew Jordan, where Neal ended up on two wheels in the Knickerbrook chicane, and all cars somehow escaped unscathed.
He said: “Jordan and Turks were having a bit of a ding-dong down the straight – Turks got to the inside of Jordan, and Jordan braked early. I stuck it up the inside of Andy and thought I could almost have two for the price of one.
“Just turning into the bend, I had to take to the kerb on the inside, which pitched me up and into Colin. I’m amazed we all got out of there alive.”
The series now moves to North Yorkshire and Croft, a track Neal is very fond of.
He said: “I love the circuit. It’s big commitment out the back, but I’ve always enjoyed it. There are some scary sections which I like, rain or shine. It is challenging in the wet or the dry.
“The Civic is working really well on the soft tyre, and we seem to be the only ones who have got our heads around that. It negates a bit of the boost issue.
“It is painful when you get a run on someone and they just pull away from you down the straight. Even our own team don’t understand it. That’s not racing, but those are the cards we have been dealt.”
