Matt Neal took one of the most important victories of his British Touring Car Championship career in the ‘diamond double’ race at Snetterton, elevating the Honda driver to just 16 points adrift of the championship lead.
The Team Dynamics driver took the lead from Eurotech Racing’s Jack Goff on the ninth lap of the race when a short rain shower caught out the early race leader, sending him wide at Turn 2 and opening the door for Neal to pass.
Thereafter Neal was able to hold on to the lead, defending against Goff and scoring his 63rd victory in the BTCC in one of its most significant races.
The three-time champion admits he was surprised to be as competitive as he was in the changeable conditions, preferring to race in the dry in the still-developing new Civic Type R.
“We qualified well, and especially with the drizzle I was expecting to go backwards at a million miles an hour,” said Neal. “I just kept my head down and saw what the car did.
“It was really loose in the first few laps – I was struggling to hang on – and Tom [Ingram] was looking racy.
“Then after two or three laps the rear settled down, and that helped I think because it protected the fronts and gave me a good front-end for the rest of the race.
“It’s definitely [one of the most important wins] – I’m really chuffed.”
Neal added that he believes the set-up he chose before the race gave him the advantage over Goff when the track conditions changed shortly after the safety car intervention.
“The rain just caught him out and the rear end got away from him in Turn 1. I was running halfway between a dry and a full wet brake setting, and I felt that was giving me the edge on him in the heavy braking areas, so I could afford to be a bit braver.
“I felt I was going to have a stab at him at one of those points on the track, because he was having to tread fairly carefully, but through the rest of it he was strong.”
Neal is unfazed by having to carry an additional 9 kg of success ballast at the next event at Rockingham, taking his ballast to 57 kg.
“Bring it on. I’ve got 57 kg, but that’s [close to] what I was running in [first] qualifying here. It is what it is – if you’ve got ballast you’ve got points in the bag, so I’ll take the points.
“In the dry we’re getting our head around the car, but in the wet I’m still struggling with it, even though Dan [Cammish] disproved it today.
“I’m hoping the Indian summer co continues for a while.”