Neal and Collard in war of words after Thruxton spat

Matt Neal and Rob Collard were embroiled in a war of words after a final race clash at Thruxton, with Neal describing Collard as a “mobile chaos machine,” and Collard calling Neal’s driving “outrageous”.

The pair came to blows at the first chicane on the penultimate lap, shortly after Collard had gone straight on through the final chicane after contact with Neal’s team-mate Gordon Shedden.

West Surrey Racing’s Collard was given a verbal warning by the stewards for the incident, and was also left unimpressed after nearly coming to blows with Honda Racing Team boss Steve Neal in the pitlane after the race.

Both men gave their view of the incident, and their overall weekend, to TouringCarTimes.

Collard said: “We had a great day today, and the eBay BMW has been fantastic. Qualifying was good, race one was strong and race two was even stronger.

“We were going really well in the third race, and then I just came under a constant barrage of attack from the two works Honda cars, hitting me left and right.

“I was just trying to get the car home to score points, and then Matt Neal hits me a couple of times at the chicane, hooks me sideways and hits me again going into the complex.

“It was outrageous behaviour from so-called professional drivers. Then the unprofessionalism of the team boss, coming over and verbally abusing me in the pitlane after I’d got out of the car, is outrageous.”

Neal said: “When my car felt really good was race three, and that’s when all the chaos ensued, and I ended up on the wrong end of the stick.

“It is a good day for Honda because it’s the closest track to Swindon. It was not such a bad day for me until race three. Everywhere I seemed to turn was the wrong way.

“Rob had a bit of a skirmish with Flash, but he was just a mobile chaos machine. I don’t know if it was retaliation for what happened with Flash, but he just torpedoed me.

“I looked sideways and he had his foot hard in, and was pushing me along the circuit. But I’m not going to fall out with Rob long-term, because I’m too old and too big.”