Honda Yuasa Racing’s Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal suffered differing fortunes for a second successive British Touring Car Championship meeting, as the 2014 campaign reached its halfway mark at Croft.
Both drivers looked well poised to score heavily after they qualified in third and fourth, but while Shedden was able to advance from his grid slot to finish runner-up to Turkington, contact on the opening lap at Clervaux for Neal meant that he finished in fifth.
The 47-year-old then thought he had scored his first podium in seven races, but after failing a ride height check, found himself excluded from the second race of the day and sent to the back for the third. That put him on the back foot, and after a collision with Rob Austin and Warren Scott, retired from the race, leaving him with a sole points finish to his name from the event.
By contrast, teammate Shedden was able to continue his impressive run of form in the 2014 season, adding another second place finish in the second race before his third place in the final race of the day was reversed to fourth, as he was demoted for contact with Mat Jackson.
But despite that penalty, a retirement for points leader Colin Turkington meant that Shedden was still able to reduce his deficit to seven points in the championship battle.
And after the weekend the 2012 champion expressed his delight at his exploits, stressing the importance of his consistent run of form in aiding a title challenge.
“Ultimately, we came away with a cracking points haul and three fantastic results – particularly given all the chaos that was kicking off in race three!” said the Scotsman. “The Civic Tourer was great and looked after the soft tyres extremely well – I really couldn’t have asked for much more from it.
“This is the first time I’ve actually scored points in every single race over the first half of the year – and consistency is what will win this championship. I am admittedly a little frustrated that we couldn’t challenge for the win in the first two races, but we’ve now got five weeks to come up with something that enables us to turn the tables and really step it up a gear over the second half of the season.”
For three-times champion Neal, his disappointing run was triggered by the race one incident, but he remained full of praise for the performance that his team and Shedden were able to carve out.
“I’m beginning to wonder what I must have done in a previous life!”said Neal, who languishes 101 points behind Turkington in the standings. “It was one of those days again for me.
“The weekend started off well enough in qualifying and the car was on fire in the first two races – the podium was definitely on the cards in race one if I hadn’t been tagged on the first lap. Essentially, that dictated the rest of my day, because we had to change the splitter after the contact and that resulted in the car failing the ride-height test after race two.
“Race three was just like bumper cars with carnage everywhere – and because I was trying to fight my way through, I unfortunately became one of the victims. It was obviously hugely disappointing to lose team and manufacturer points, but on the positive side, it was a great weekend for ‘Flash’ and as a team, we’re still very much in the hunt in all three championships.”