Weight-laden Gordon Shedden pleased with qualifying pace

Honda Racing Team’s Gordon Shedden was surprised but delighted to plant his ballast-laden Civic Type-R on the front row at Thruxton, and says he’s hopeful of a strong race day today.

Coming into the weekend third in the standings, Shedden qualified second with 57kg of weight on board, just ahead of team-mate Matt Neal with the full 75kg on board.

The 2012 champion said he expected pole sitter Aron Smith to win the first race, but is confident the work the team has done on the Civic will help him perform strongly across the day.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Shedden said: “I’ve got nearly 60kg in it, which is a lot, but we worked hard at the cars. They haven’t been easy to drive, but we’ve worked on something which we hope is going to give us something special for Sunday.

“Out of all the circuits this is the one where you’d want to carry the weight, because you only have to stop the car at a few points in the lap, and at some points the weight can settle the car down a bit.”

“To be that far up in qualifying, we’re delighted to be there, but we didn’t expect it.

“It’s going to be tough racing on Sunday as Aron [Smith] is about 40kg less than I’ve got and 55kg less than Matt [Neal], so he should be long gone in the first one – but he’s got to get it to the end.”

Thruxton showed the continual progress the team is making with the new Type-R, and Shedden said there was still more to come.

He said: “The car was so late by our standards, and our plan was to muddle through the first three rounds and see what we got.

“We’re going to need to improve it because it isn’t perfect yet, but we treat that as a positive. Every time we’re out it’s different and we’re covering a lot of ground. That’s just testament to everyone working on the car for giving us that kind of package.”