Gordon Shedden delighted to take new car to the top step

Gordon Shedden was pleased to take his new Honda Civic Type-R to the top step of the podium on a weekend where him and team-mate Matt Neal were happy to be battling in the top 10.

The 2012 champion beat West Surrey Racing’s Andy Priaulx to the line in a final lap sprint after getting caught up with a backmarker in to Surtees and McLaren. The Honda’s superior straight line speed did the job for Shedden, taking the Scot to the top of the points standings after two races.

“I’m delighted,” Shedden told TouringCarTimes. “It’s absolutely unexpected because the car is so new. I think this weekend for Matt and I to be pretty happy with seventh and eleventh gives you an idea of where our expectations were.”

Jason Plato had looked dominating in his Team BMR Volkswagen CC in the early stages of the race before a puncture sent him careening off in to the gravel trap at Paddock Hill Bend, leaving Priaulx and Shedden to battle it out for the win.

“Sometimes you’ve got to take advantage of situations,” Shedden continued. “That’s touring car racing and we’ve got to the end first. We’ve won a race, it doesn’t matter how you do it, we’ve still won it, that’s the main thing.”

Shedden and Neal had both taken top ten starts for the second race, which is now set by fastest lap times, with Shedden lining up in third, suggesting that the new Honda Civic Type-R has strong race pace despite being almost fresh out the box.

“Yeah our race pace looked good,” said Shedden. “We managed to start from quite near the front which makes life a bit easier for race two. But Jason was still quite far ahead but you’ve got to get to the chequered flag to win.”

The race two winner will now start from tenth on the grid for the final race and will have to line up on the grid with soft tyres on. The softer rubber has been a problem for most drivers at Brands Hatch, with the tyre seemingly dropping off the pace very quickly and by a long way.

“We don’t know what the soft tyre’ll be like yet because we’ve not bolted a set on the car, that’s how new it is,” Shedden concluded. “We’ve just got to go and do the best we can but you’re not going to swap a win for anything.”