Matt Neal delighted with first pole position of the year

Reigning champion Matt Neal took his first pole position of the year at Croft, at the North Yorkshire circuit where he won two races last year on his way to the 2011 drivers’ title.

The result is the Honda Racing Team’s first pole of the year, with the team’s strong point having been primarily in the races where they’ve won eight of the first 12 races. As a result of their success, the Next Generation Touring Car specification Hondas are running with the most restrictive boost setting on the field, which is hampering them in the speed traps, but the cars showed they were still the strongest over a lap.

“Not just first, but a 1-2-3 for Honda,” said Neal to TouringCarTimes. “Considering the straight line issues we’ve got, I’m absolutely stoked about it.”

“I thought Jason (Plato) would have us, I thought he was going to be strong, or I thought Andy (Jordan) would have pole with his weight advantage. I was targeting top four, so it was a little bit of a surprise.”

Neal’s pole position lap was set on his first run, a time of 1:24.900 which was fractionally slower than the times that both Jason Plato and Andrew Jordan had set in the first two free practice sessions.

“The car felt really good on the first run, then we just tried playing around with different tyre combinations, just to try and find that bit more out of it, but that (first run) was as good as it was going to get,” said Neal.

Looking ahead to Sunday’s races, where weather predictions vary but a strong expectation all round that it will rain at some point, Neal’s not too worried about which way the weather plays out.

“We should be in OK trim in the wet, if it’s dry at least we’re starting at the right end.”