Photo: PSP Images

Matt Neal and Rob Collard differ on responsibility for qualifying collision

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Team Dynamics Honda driver Matt Neal and West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard were critical of each other after a collision in qualifying which brought out the red flag, and relegated the championship front-runners to the middle of the field tomorrow.

The two drivers cars came together at Hawthorns just before 15 minutes were up in the 30-minute qualifying session, with Neal colliding with Collard’s BMW as he tried to pass him while on a flying lap.

The two cars were eliminated from the session with damage, and would fall from sixth and seventh to 16th and 17th by the time the chequered flag was waved.

“Someone needs to give me a break as that’s the second meeting in a row where someone has taken me off,” said Collard. “At Oulton Park it was Jeff Smith in race one and now this with Matt has really hurt my chances. It’s frustrating because the season started so well and then in the last two rounds, it’s just been a disaster through no fault of my own.

“I felt I had left Matt plenty of space and kept out of the way, you could have got two trucks in the gap, but all of a sudden he came into the side of my car. We had a car that was good enough for the top six when you look at where Sam (Tordoff) ended up and see where we were before the incident so I’m gutted for the whole team. We’re a close knit bunch and we didn’t deserve that. Matt has apologised but that isn’t going to make things right in terms of where we’ve qualified.”

Although apologetic, Team Dynamics’ Neal believed there wasn’t enough room to get past Collard’s BMW 125i.

“I was on my flying lap and came down with my lights on,” said Neal to TouringCarTimes. “He thought he gave me enough room, I tried to use the space he gave me and we just touched. It broke my rear wheel and that just turned me into him.”

Neal will line-up just three places behind team-mate Gordon Shedden, who also had a nightmare of a qualifying session. When asked why the Hondas are so far off the pace this weekend, the triple-champion replied: “That’s a good question? Look at the speed traps.”