Gordon Shedden was pleased to take second place in the opening round of the 2016 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship as the reigning champion finished behind maiden winner Tom Ingram and ahead of team-mate Matt Neal in his Honda Civic Type-R.
In a frantic 27 lap season opener, Shedden came home 2.284 seconds behind the Speedworks Motorsport drive, but admitted to TouringCars.net moments after stepping off the podium that he was happy to take the runner-up spot on this occasion.
“Points on the board, steady progress and it’s all good,” summarised Shedden.
“You’re never going to win the championship today but it’s nice to get a decent haul of points and it’s a good marker in the ground for the year ahead.”
He also paid tribute to Ingram, who scored a maiden podium at Rockingham last season and now enters the winners circle for the first time in this, his third season in the UK’s premier tin-top series.
“He drove a great race, fair play, his first win – I’m delighted for him. He didn’t put a foot wrong and I’m happy. Second place – it’s okay, but we’ll move on, we’ll go racing from there.”
Looking ahead to the second race of the day, which begins at 14:32 this afternoon, Shedden believes that some changes need to be made to his Type R in order to give him a more aggressive setup with which to attack Ingram’s pole position this afternoon.
“We need to tweak it a little bit,” he explained
“Just the temperature coming up and things again. Race one of the season I think we’re maybe just a little bit safe, [we’ll] crank it up a bit now and go for it.”
He also acknowledged the significance of Ingram claiming victory in the opening race, the only round of the season where the cars run at their base weight and performance, and believes the 22 year old has a good season in prospect.
“If he keeps on going like he is then he’ll be fine. Now we’ve got to run a bit of weight, so we’ll see if he’s been testing all winter with some weight on.”