Gordon Shedden feels like he is in a ‘better position’ ahead of the start of his second year in the FIA World Touring Car Cup, with the Audi driver now knowing almost all of the circuits in the coming season.
Shedden, 40, embarked upon his first full season in World Touring Cars in 2018, racing an Audi RS3 LMS for the WRT squad.
The year proved to be an at-times difficult one for the three-time British champion, with Shedden emerging in 13th overall at the end of the year but crucially taking a breakthrough win in October.
With a full season now under his belt, and with the same knowledge of the coming circuits as his rivals, Shedden believes that he heads into the new season feeling much better prepared.
“I feel good,” Shedden told TouringCars.Net. “Learning the circuits was a big thing last year, especially when you’re racing against guys who have done ten or fifteen years in World Touring Cars already.
“For a lot of last year we were half a step behind, especially at iconic circuits like Vila Real and Macau, but we were just missing that little bit.
“If you can’t get the job done in qualifying as we saw last year it just made racing particularly difficult. We go into this year knowing where we’re going and we’re a lot better prepared for sure. We’ll give it a go and we should be in a better position.”
Shedden will work with renowned race engineer Paul Ridgway in the coming season, whom he has previously worked with in the BTCC in 2009. Ridgway also has recent experience in engineering TCR cars from working with WestCoast Racing in the TCR International Series.
“There’s been a change of engineer for me, to have someone who has World Touring Car experience and TCR experience, and that’s working well,” explained Shedden. “It’s great to have the consistency with JK [Vernay] and WRT – that’s always important when you’re trying to build a programme.
“It’s something that worked particularly well with me in BTCC before – it was the same team all the way through and that paid dividends.
“That leaves me in a happy place rather than jumping and chopping and changing too much.”
Shedden was complimentary about the quality of the competition on the WTCR grid in 2019, which he says is almost unparalleled anywhere in the world. The Scot will have to beat five world champions and a field full of touring car race-winners each weekend.
“As a racing driver you want to race against the best in the world. We keep talking about this ‘supergrid’ which is great as a phrase, but actually look at it: if you started with a blank piece of paper and took your ideal and tried to have a mythical championship of touring cars, the names that you would have on it are actually physically on the grid.
“I’ve raced against many of them before. It’s great that Andy Priaulx, a triple world champion, has come back, and I’ve raced against him in BTCC three years ago.
“History is great, the championships that everyone has won is great, but they’re just other racing drivers and we all want to fight against the best.
“There’s maybe fifteen people that could win the world championship and every single driver could win a race – what other championship genuinely gives you that opportunity? Very few.”