Honda performance leaves Matt Neal smiling

Matt Neal was overjoyed with the performances of the Honda Racing Team in the opening three races of the British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch, leaving himself in the lead of the points as he and team-mate Gordon Shedden both took victories.

The three-time BTCC champion struggled with pace in his brand new Honda Civic Type-R in the opening sessions and qualifying, only managing eleventh for the race one grid, far from the team’s high expectations of previous seasons. However, having only driven the car for the first time at the media day, Neal was happy with the potential the car was showing.

“Normally if I qualified eleventh my bottom lip would be out but I was actually in a real good vibe last night with the potential in the car and what we can work with,” he told TouringCarTimes. “But still even with that feeling we have been trying a lot of stuff today to just try and find the sweet spot. I had a rough kind of two races and on the soft tyre the car came alive again with a few more changes but never expected results like that.”

Where other drivers struggled, Neal found the soft tyre helped his Honda and was able to place his car at the top of the field after following race leader Rob Austin and picking his moment as the Audi A4 dropped back, before holding back the charging MG6 of Jack Goff.

“The soft tyre brought my car alive really,” Neal added. “The Honda has historically been good on the soft tyre, it looks after it better, but the last five laps Jack was definitely on it, I was looking more in the rear view mirror than the front windscreen, I could see the front of that MG very vividly behind me.”

Neal now leads the championship, along with Jack Goff who are both on 37 points, but is well aware that there are a lot of drivers who are yet to show their cards to their full potential and there could be a totally different story at Donington Park.

“Lets just see how we go,” said Neal. “I’m under no illusions, I know Jason and co have been very very fast in the BMR cars and it’s not gone their way. They’ll be lighter at Donington so it’ll be a tough weekend for us. I’m just going to enjoy the moment and enjoy the couple of weeks between now and then. But you can’t understand how elated I am, it’s just so unexpected we never thought we’d get one this weekend never mind two.”