Gordon Shedden “chuffed” to leave Croft with points lead
Gordon Shedden was delighted to enter the BTCC summer break with a ten point lead, but knows that there is still plenty of work to do to stay at the top.
The 2012 champion enjoyed three top five finishes at Croft, despite carrying significant ballast throughout the weekend, capped off by a podium result in the third and final race.
“I had a cracking run in qualifying to be fair,” Shedden told TouringCarTimes. “To stick it third on the grid with 66kg, I was dead chuffed with that. I’ve had a really good car all weekend. Race one was OK, good points but the BMWs have been enjoying a different race to the rest of us at this circuit, which is fine, so fourth was probably the best I could have hoped for. Race two, OK it wasn’t perfect but it was solid points and then a podium in race three, with soft tyres on a front wheel drive car, dead chuffed with that.”
The weekend was dominated by the rear-wheel-drive BMWs, with each of the three West Surrey Racing drivers tasting victory in the three races.
“This was never going to be an easy one,” continued Shedden. “Just in terms of what the BMWs and the Audi can do, with that there’s swings and roundabouts it’ll change as the year goes on.”
Shedden now takes a ten point lead in to the six week summer break, but stresses that the Honda Racing Team will be hard at work to keep themselves at the top in the second half.
“It’s a good first half of the year, but there’s no prizes at this stage unfortunately! If I can be leading at the end of the season by 10 points I’ll be doing backflips. We’ll definitely test for sure, we have to make the most of the opportunity. It’s so competitive we’ve got to be on the double, if we don’t move forward we’ll go backwards at a great rate of knots so we’ve got to find something else but I fully believe it’s in it to be had.
“Everyone forgets a bit how late this Civic Type R was, my one didn’t turn a wheel until the media day and then it didn’t run particularly well either, it just did a couple of laps – but god it’s good. Give us six weeks to test the thing to try and understand it a bit more and I look forward to the second half of the year.”
