Gordon Shedden pleased with first win of 2016

Gordon Shedden was delighted to get his first win of 2016 at Brands Hatch, leading home a Honda 1-2 having already scored second place in the first race.

Starting from second, the Honda driver was third by Paddock Hill Bend following a lightning start from West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard. Collard and race leader Tom Ingram battled before contact caused damage to Ingram and Collard to spin, allowing Shedden to claim the lead and control the race for the win.

“It’s almost perfect, isn’t it?” said Shedden to TouringCarTimes. “It could’ve been very different if Ingram and Collard had stayed on the road, they were intent on taking each other out and that worked in my favour! Once I got to the front the car felt good, I think we were probably a bit safe in race one, tweaked it a little bit and she was good, it was almost a little bit better with 66kgs on it, we need to start scratching our heads and find out what’s going on with that one.”

With just three laps to go a patch of fluid began catching a number of drivers out, including some of the front-running cars. However, Shedden said that by that point he wasn’t pushing hard enough for the fluid to cause any real problems.

“There was a slippery surface but there was also some grass on the apex so I thought it was that,” he continued. “To be honest though three laps from home so I wasn’t pushing hard enough for an issue.”

Following the reverse grid draw, Shedden will now start race three from ninth on the grid, but with full ballast and soft tyres, the reigning champion is aiming for a solid points finish for the final race of the day.

I’ll give it the best job possible, it’ll be quite interesting if it rains or something, just to throw something else in the mix, car feels good, but it’ll be hard in race three with full ballast and soft tyres but we’ll get as many points as we can.