Honda Racing Team drivers Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden are hoping that they will be able to hold onto the lead in all three championships that they currently lead at Oulton Park.
Neal, who as current leader of the driver’s championship, will be carrying 45kg of success ballast and he believes that this could prove hard work at Oulton Park. “The rules say that if you are leading the points, you have to have success ballast and that is going to be a real penalty around somewhere like Oulton Park,” admitted former double champion Neal. “It is a fast, flowing circuit with lots of undulations and plenty of points where you have to accelerate hard – which is where the success ballast is going to hold me back. Despite that, I love the track because it is a real challenge and you have to be very committed.
“One thing that we do have up our sleeve is that Oulton is about handling and we know that the Civic has a brilliant chassis,” added Neal. “If we can exploit that and then maybe shed some of the success ballast later on then we will have a real shot at big points. I am looking to protect the advantage that I have in the standings and then reap the rewards in races two and three. I am expecting my main opposition to come from my team-mate ‘Flash’ Gordon Shedden and I will be trying to hang on to him.”
Shedden is currently 5th in the driver’s championship after a mixed start to the season that has saw him claim just one win so far. However he has been one of the fastest drivers of the season so far and carries just 9kg of ballast on his car for the first race. Shedden has won at Oulton Park twice before and is looking to add more wins to that tally.
“It will be wins that I am after,” said a confident Shedden. “I am not that far away from second in the points behind Matt and the best way to achieve that is to win races at Oulton Park.
“I have traditionally gone well there and the Civic is a great car for getting around the sweeps and the dips at the track so I am going to the races in a very optimistic frame of mind. I only have nine kilogrammes of success ballast and that puts me in a good position to capitalise while the others are loaded up. There is lots of racing to be done and they have changed the rules again ahead of this meeting so I am expecting the competition to be strong but I am confident that we will be right in the mix as well.”