Gordon Shedden: “We’re nowhere near the limit of the car”

Gordon Shedden was the best placed of the Honda contingent in qualifying for the opening round of the 2015 British Touring Car Championship, putting the new Team Dynamics developed Honda Civic Type-R seventh on the grid at Brands Hatch.

The Scottish driver remarked the result could have been even better if it wasn’t for the red flag interruption, which was caused when Eurotech Racing’s Martin Depper stopped his Honda at the exit of Graham Hill bend with ten minutes remaining, minus a wheel.

The 2012 champion was within two-tenths of a second from pole-sitter Andy Priaulx, with a second covering the top 18 cars in a close session at the short 1.2 mile Brands Hatch Indy circuit.

“It’s so close round here, the red flag just came at the wrong time for us. In hindsight, and hindsight’s a wonderful thing, we should have done something different with the tyre strategy after the red flag, but we went with what we thought was right,” said Shedden to TouringCarTimes.

“It would have been good to have stuck it up on the second row, which is where I think we are at, so we’ve fallen back a little bit, but given where we were two weeks ago I think we can be happy with what we’ve got. We’re certainly nowhere near the limit of the car, so once we’ve got some time with it and got to dial it in a bit better, that’ll get us up the sharp end.”

Sheden’s team-mate Matt Neal qualified the sister Civic Type-R in 11th position for tomorrow’s first race, which gets underway at 11:50 BST.