The Honda Yuasa Racing team continues to lead the way in the 2013 British Touring Car Championship despite a testing time at Oulton Park.
Both drivers, Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden were laden with success ballast for the event in Cheshire and the Honda Civics had the lowest amount of boost out of everyone on the grid.
Reigning Champion Shedden secured a brace of podium finishes in the #1 Honda Civic, with a third place finish in race 1 bettered with 2nd in race 2, and he was set for a good result in the final race before a puncture forced him to pit and he dropped back down the order – he picked up the point for fastest lap in the final race.
“Splitting the MGs was good in race two,” said Shedden, who remained fourth in the drivers’ standings. “The car has been fantastic all weekend and we maximised what we had.
“The Civic was great on the soft tyre again, but it was a crazy reversed-grid race and it didn’t go my way.”
Neal, with the maximum 45kgs success ballast on board the sister Civic could only finish 8th fastest in qualifying.
Despite the handicap of carrying maximum ballast in race one, Neal worked his way forward to secure 6th and this meant he headed into race 2 ballast free.
Neal moved forwards again in race 2 and finished fourth and with the top ten drivers reversed for the final race of the day, the triple Champion lined up seventh on the grid.
Fourth place was the result for Neal and he retained the Championship lead but with a reduced margin over Jordan.
“The weight and the boost made it hard,” said the triple champion. “You’ve got to drag the weight up in four places here.
“When we had the weight out for race two we made a set-up change that didn’t quite work and we didn’t reap the benefits.
“We changed it again for race three and the car came alive. It was awesome. I wanted the race to go on. It felt like the soft tyre was lasting better than the hard!” concluded Neal.