After a frustrating weekend at Croft that saw Matt Neal lose ground in the British Touring Car Championship title battle, the three-time champion insists both he and Halfords Yuasa Racing have no intention of taking the setback lying down.
Despite levelling on points with BMW’s Sam Tordoff during the second of three races around the 2.13 mile Yorkshire circuit, Neal failed to break into the top eight across the weekend and subsequently sits 3rd in the Drivers standings, 15 points adrift of Tordoff. Tordoff’s team-mate Rob Collard also leapfrogged Neal into the runners up spot, due in no small part to his race two victory.
Honda had come into the weekend hoping to be among the strongest front-wheel drive entrants at a circuit traditionally suited to the rear-wheel drive NGTC machines, such as the BMW 125i M-Sport or the Subaru Levorg GT.
However, despite playing their usual tactic of scoring consistent points before bagging a strong result in the final reverse grid contest, the defending champions were unable to match the pace of some of their closest rivals, with Subaru and MG also both taking race victories in the hands of Colin Turkington and first-time winner Ashley Sutton respectively.
As a result, Halfords Yuasa Racing have slipped to 2nd in the HiQ Teams Championship, with a margin of 52 points to close to Team JCT600 with GardX. They have also lost ground to the BMW trio in the Manufacturers standings.
The weekend started in the worst possible fashion for Neal, when a clash with Collard during a tense thirty-minute qualifying session on Saturday left him in 17th on the grid with 66 kilograms of success ballast on board, hampering his chances of progressing.
Collard appeared to move to the outside line as a faster Neal behind approached on a flying lap, but the Honda Civic Type-R clipped the front-right of the BMW, sending the #25 off the circuit with a damaged rear-left suspension, and neither car was able to make it back to the pit lane under its own power.
Neal was subsequently given an official reprimand and two penalty points on his racing licence by the stewards at the BARC venue.
Things scarcely improved on race day, although a hat-trick of points scores will seem a positive to Neal compared to team-mate and defending champion Gordon Shedden, who managed to pick up just four points all weekend.
After securing 12th in the first race, Neal then bettered himself further in race two with 10th before the wet weather conditions saw him fall back slightly in race three, and he finished 11th.
Reflecting on a difficult weekend, Neal admits he believes that both he and the team extracted the most performance possible from their title-winning machinery.
“It’s been a tough weekend and one I won’t be sorry to see the back of!” he commented.
“We knew the rear wheel-drive cars would have an advantage at Croft, but we thought we would still be somewhere in or around the top six and that obviously wasn’t the case.”
“In the circumstances, we got pretty much the maximum we could out of the car.”
He also explained that a lack of straight-line speed forced him to work the Dunlop tyres harder than he would have liked, reducing his performance in the latter stages of the races.
“I drove my heart out and race two was quite enjoyable; because we were struggling for straight-line speed, I had to work the tyres quite hard and that halted our progress in the closing stages.”
Keen to focus on the positives, however, Neal insists both he and the team will go away over the BTCC’s annual summer break and regroup ahead of the next triple-header at Snetterton over the last weekend of July.
“On the positive side, both cars came back in one piece when quite a few didn’t and we can now go away and regroup over the summer break. Believe me, we won’t be rolling over by any means!”