Honda Yuasa Racing Team duo Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden secured three podium finishes during rounds 19, 20 and 21 of the British Touring Car Championship.
Local driver Shedden secured a brace of top three finishes during the opening two races at Knockhill to move into the lead of the Championship before an off track excursion in the final race meant that he had to retire the #52 Honda Civic in the pits.
Despite the race three retirement, Shedden was happy with his weekend.
“Given the ballast and everything that we had, we got two good results,” he said. “We’ve increased the buffer in the championship, but we’re going to need it.”
The race three incident happened at the chicane and Shedden was forced off track to avoid another driver.
“In race three Paul O’Neill and Aron Smith ran wide at Scotsman. Nick Foster got up the inside and Smith turned in and headed straight for the apex. Nick tried to give Aron as much space as possible and got up on two wheels – I was faced with his car coming into me,” continued Shedden.
“I had to take avoiding action, went onto the grass and ripped the front [of the car] off.”
Matt Neal secured a podium in the final encounter at Knockhill, having secured a seventh and eighth place finish in the opening two races.
His race 3 podium enabled Neal to move back to the top of the Championship standings with a 10 point advantage over Shedden while their closest rival, Jason Plato is 36 points behind in third.
“It was a rotter for me, but to still score strong points in the teams’ and manufacturers’ championships and to salvage what we could showed we got something out of nothing,” Neal said.
“The car felt pretty good. Flash had some issues [with the boost control] at Snetterton and here it was on my car – we didn’t have time to sort it. We had what we had.”
The results have enabled Honda Yuasa Racing Team to extend their advantage in the Manufacturers and Teams’ Championship ahead of the trip to Rockingham over the 22/23 September.