Rob Collard was left frustrated after tangling with fellow championship contender Matt Neal during a dramatic thirty-minute qualifying session at Croft yesterday.
The clash between the duo at Hawthorns halfway through the session brought out the red flags and left both at the mercy of the rest of the field as the lap times began to tumble following the restart.
The Team JCT600 with GardX driver, who currently sits 3rd in the standings some 26 points adrift of team-mate and leader, Sam Tordoff, will start 13th after having an earlier disallowed lap time re-instated after qualifying, whilst Neal lines up just 17th for the opening contest.
The BMW 125i M-Sport and Honda Civic Type-R made contact as Neal attempted to overtake Collard whilst on a flying lap. Collard moved over to the outside line in order to give Neal room, but the stewards adjudged Neal to have been at fault as the striking orange and black Honda speared into the front-right of the BMW, breaking the left-rear suspension in the process and sending Neal onto the grass. Both cars would return to the pits on low-loaders rather than their own steam.
The stewards elected to take retrospective action against Neal, who has been given an official reprimand and two penalty points on his racing licence as a result.
Collard, who has found qualifying to be his achilles heel thus far this campaign, was left frustrated once more as he was left with his work cut out in the opening race, which starts today just after midday. After a similar result at Oulton Park, the Hampshire-based racer would go on to overtake 40 cars over the course of the weekends triple header.
“Matt misjudged the gap,” he claimed. “I was on cold tyres and left a gap.”
“He’s apologised, he got it wrong, but it doesn’t bring qualifying back for me. I’d shown good pace and we were looking for a potential top five – it’s very frustrating.”
Matt Neal admitted he felt there was adequate space as he attempted the overtake and was left to rue what may have been.
“I thought there was enough space but unfortunately we just touched wheels,” he summarised.