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Gordon Shedden hopes Honda can find solution to top-speed deficit

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Team Dynamics Honda driver Gordon Shedden left his home circuit of Knockhill fourth in the standings after a positive weekend, and still in the hunt for this third British Touring Car Championship title, but fears the Honda Civic Type-R could even be outside of the top 20 in the coming races unless they can resolve their top-speed issues.

Although Honda weren’t the fancied car at Knockhill, which has always historically fancied the rear-wheel drive cars, former champion Matt Neal stole a surprise victory from Jason Plato in Race 2 thanks in part to running the option Dunlop soft tyre in the race, while Shedden made the most of the same tyres in Race 3 to go from 10th to fourth, crossing the line behind the trio of Mat Jackson, Sam Tordoff and Jason Plato.

“In the face of adversity, it was decent points, probably the long and short of it,” said Shedden to TouringCarTimes.

“We’re just not quick enough up the straights. We’re at the bottom of the speed traps. We can make progress in the corners, but then they start slowing us up in the corners we just can’t go any further, it’s a bit frustrating, but I’ve had plenty of worse weekends than this.

“I come out of the corner tucked under their boot lid, but by the end of the straight they’re four car lengths ahead. I can make it all up again, but then the same happens on the next lap.”

Team Dynamics and their engine partner Neil Brown are understood to be working on further developments to the Type-R engine to resolve the straight-line speed issue, while championship organiser TOCA’s engine equivalency measures saw fit to make no changes to the Honda’s permitted boost levels at Knockhill.

Although the Civic Type-R should still be competitive at Rockingham and Brands Hatch, the in-between round at Silverstone is set to be a struggle.

“Unless we have a significant improvement at Silverstone, we’ll be lucky to be in the top 20 as it’s just straights there,” said Shedden. “We’ll be alright at Brands GP, but we need to come up with something as we’re not in the same ballgame at the moment. “