Matt Neal “looking forwards not backwards” after rough day at Snetterton

Matt Neal was left disappointed after a “rough day at the office” saw the Honda Racing Team driver drop from third to sixth in the points standings.

The three-time BTCC champion took a sixth in race one before an incident-filled race two saw Neal make heavy contact with team-mate Gordon Shedden in the first lap squash in the midfield. The contact broke Shedden’s rear subframe while severe damage to the front end of Neal’s car eventually caused his retirement from the race.

Neal had a better time in race three, working his way up in to 11th place having started from 21st on the grid. Shedden, despite finishing two laps down after being forced back to the pits after yet more drama, took home a point for the fastest lap.

As a result, Neal has dropped to sixth and Shedden down to third from first in the standings, while Honda have seen their lead in the manufacturer’s standings cut down to just five points over MG.

“You’ve got to look forwards not backwards,” a dejected Neal told TouringCarTimes. “Just a rough day at the office. We were first and third coming here, it’s a bit of a power circuit and we’ve had a particularly bad day. But we’re not down and out, we’re not dead in the water, we’ve just got to bounce back from it.”

Looking ahead to the next round at Knockhill, Neal was hopeful that the Honda Civic Type-R could pull out a result, despite the Scottish circuit being more suited to the BMWs of West Surrey Racing.

“We’ve got what we’ve got really now, there’s not a lot more to come out the engine, where we’re quite strong is where we hit the ground running at the beginning of the year,” said Neal. “We’re both a bit lighter at Knockhill, which will probably be a BMW circuit but the Civic’s nimble, which hopefully will help us out around the tight and twisty sections of that.”