Wins and spins for Honda Racing Team duo

A dramatic weekend for both Honda Racing Team drivers at Knockhill saw a first win of the season for Matt Neal, a topsy-turvy day for Gordon Shedden in his title bid, and plenty of on-track incidents.

Neal kept his nose clean in the opening encounter to win from Rob Austin’s Audi A4, before a drive-through penalty for creeping at the start of race two consigned him to the midfield.

He finished 14th after contact with Martin Depper which put the fellow Honda driver out of the race, then finished 11th in the finale after a scrape with Fabrizio Giovanardi.

For his part, Shedden was involved in a race-changing incident with Andrew Jordan in the opening encounter, and incidents with Austin in both race one and two.

Both Honda drivers felt Austin was to blame for the race two incident.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Neal said: “I was on the soft tyre in race one  which was hard to start with, but then they came in and it unfolded in front of me, and I could reel in Tordoff.

“The car felt good for the second one too, and I think we could have had a run on the hard tyre. But we were stuck in traffic and we were snookered.

“With these NGTC regs we run an electronic handbrake which is line-locked. You put the pressure on the brake pedal, and because they’re holding the lights so long, the clutch begins to creep. I didn’t think I’d crept that much.

“We didn’t come here with high expectations, because the Tourer is fast on the faster stuff. We were expecting a bit of a bloody nose.

“After the first one we though we could have a cracking weekend, and on lap one of race two, we were going to have a cracking weekend.

“Then Flash got fired off by Austin and I got a drive through – it all went Pete Tong from there really.”

Shedden’s incident with Austin at Clark’s in race one saw the Audi drop to fifth, before the pair made contact at Scotsman on the first lap of the second race, dropping the home driver to the tail of the field.

The 2012 champion was also involved in a dramatic clash with Andrew Jordan after a fierce fight in race one, which led to Shedden spinning and Jordan retiring.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Shedden said: “I guess I probably feel hard done by in race two, because that was massively avoidable. Knowing Rob’s demeanour after race one, it was almost inevitable. I think he knew exactly what he was doing.

“You’re just in damage limitation from then. The car’s felt good all weekend, and we’ve not got the results that perhaps we deserved.

“Everyone’s going to have their tales of woe. I think we had a quicker car than we thought we were going to have, but not to be able to take advantage of it is disappointing, especially with Colin [Turkington] having his problems.

“But, hey. You can’t change it. It is what it is – we’ll go and attack again at Rockingham in a couple of weeks.”

On the Jordan incident, he added: “I was up the inside – I had a beautiful switchback at the top of Duffus, and it was him bouncing off the kerb that spun me off.”