An issue with a bracing bar on the steering of Matt Neal’s Honda curtailed the triple champion’s qualifying efforts at Donington Park, with Neal predicting that he could have challenged for pole position.
Neal had been challenging for top times early on in the session, being the first driver to break below the 1 minute 10 second barrier. He went on to trade top times with Subaru’s Ash Sutton for a few laps and was fourth quickest at the halfway stage.
In the end, however, Neal suffered from a broken bracing bar on his Civic, which prevented him from returning to the session after a brief red-flag period brought about by a fluid spillage on the circuit.
“I think we could have threatened the front row, but Sutton was a bit of a surprise to everybody,” said Neal to TouringCars.Net. “I think we’d have been close to him, but we didn’t get the opportunity in the end.
“One of the bracing bars [broke], so the wheel was just floating around. To be honest I tried just continuing around it, but I was twiddling around a bit. It’s amazing how much you hang on to the steering wheel and use it for leverage.”
Neal admits he was disappointed to only qualifying in seventh, as he asserted that there was more pace in the car, which was carrying no success ballast, in contrast to team-mate Gordon Shedden on maximum weight who ended up just 0.050 seconds behind.
“There was more [pace] in the car and you could see in the data that there was more,” added Neal. “With [less] weight, I’ve got nothing to lose in the races. I’ve obviously got a bit of a straight line [speed advantage] over Flash, as the car picks its heels up better without the weight in.”
In Sunday’s opening race, Neal predicts that the Subaru of Sutton won’t get away at the front of the field, and that he could end up bunching up the field behind him.
“The starts are critical – there’s some wildcats around where we are on the grid, so we’ve just got to see what sort of start we can make and see what unfolds.
“I can’t believe Sutton can keep that pace up, so I think he’ll be the cork in the bottle. He should, being in a rear-wheel drive car, make a good start at the front but then I think it could get quite busy at the front – he’s not going to break away.
“I’ve just got to keep my head down – who knows what could happen.”