Matt Neal: “It’s going to be very close.”

Team Dynamics’ Matt Neal posted the fastest time in the dying moments of the four-hour test session at Donington Park as part of the BTCC’s launch event, and with Triple Eight’s new signing Ashley Sutton close behind as well as the Toyotas of Rob Austin and Tom Ingram, the three-time champion is projecting a close battle at the season opener.

Neal, who started the day behind the wheel of his 2005 and 2006 championship winning Honda Integra Type-R as part of the season launch activities, was happy with the progress made with the new RML components on the Halfords Yuasa-backed factory Honda.

“It’s a nice start for the first time it’s broken cover,” said Neal to TouringCarTimes. “It’s going to be very close, so we’ll see.

“Most of the day we’ve been working on the TOCA components with the RML guys, and it’s been a productive day. As I’d been doing back-to-back stuff with them, (at the end) we just wanted to open her up.”

Assessing the competition, including the absent Team BMR Subarus, which will test ahead of all four cars running at Brands Hatch for the season opener on April 3rd, Neal added:

“The strength of the TOCA engine looks strong, that’s the one worrying thing for us…(and) to be honest, I don’t think the (Subaru) engine will be as strong as the TOCA engine.”

With Sutton and new Triple Eight MG team-mate Josh Cook finishing second and fifth of the 26 taking part in the test, Neal was also mindful of the fresh competition going into this season

“There’s a lot of new faces coming in and we don’t really know them. We don’t know the personalities or how they’re going to race.”

Team Dynamics will be switching to the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent tomorrow, continuing to prepare for the first round of the championship in just over a week’s time.