Fully ballasted Matt Neal praying for rain at Thruxton

Matt Neal will be doing a rain dance this morning as he hopes to convert his third place on the grid into a strong race result.

The three-time BTCC champion was in the hunt for pole position for the majority of the session, swapping fastest times with eventual pole-sitter Tom Ingram before Aiden Moffat jumped into second in the final few minutes.

“I’m dead chuffed to be fair,“ Neal told TouringCarTimes. “It caught me out on the first lap, and you’ve really only got one lap on the tyres, so I managed to do it on my second set and there was some big commitment out the back.”

Neal knows that converting his one lap pace into a strong race result will not be easy, however, with the championship leader having to carry the full 75kg of success ballast into race one, a very tough task around the flat-out Thruxton circuit.

“That’s a bit of a tougher affair for us,” he admitted. “I don’t think we’re going to be as strong in race trim but at least we’re starting at the right end and we’ll try to pick up as many points as we can, stay out of trouble and pray for a bit of rain.”