Ballast laden Gordon Shedden ready for tough challenge

Points leader Gordon Shedden admits that he is expecting a tough weekend at Croft this weekend as he seeks to maintain his lead in the BTCC standings.

The Honda driver moved into the championship lead last time out at Oulton Park and makes the trip to North Yorkshire sitting 16 points clear of Rob Collard in the race for the crown.

The defending champion will now carry maximum ballast on his Civic Type-R into the weekend ahead and admitted that his focus was on trying to manage the weight to score as many points as possible.

“Croft is an interesting circuit,” he said. “It’s a little bit like a game of two halves with a blend of slow, technical corners and really fast, high-adrenaline corners, which always throws up a few surprises.

“It’s obviously fantastic to be going there leading the standings, but the downside to that is having to carry a whole heap of glorious ballast for qualifying and race one! That will be tough and it means we’ll need to play the long game, but this championship will ebb-and-flow a lot before the year is out and I’ll take the points any day.

“Hopefully, the Civic Type R will do the business again and the weekend will come to me as it goes on.”

Team-mate Matt Neal meanwhile said he was hopeful that the Civic would prove to be a match for the rear-wheel drive cars that have traditionally been strong.

“You’ve got the technical section and the proper high-speed stuff through the Esses and Barcroft, which isn’t for the faint-hearted – you’ve really got to hold on!” he said. “In that respect, you need a good all-round car, which the Civic Type R unquestionably is.

“Traction out of the hairpin will undoubtedly help the rear wheel-drives, but I’m hopeful we can give them a good run for their money.”