Advantage Gordon Shedden after Brands Hatch

Defending champion Gordon Shedden made the ideal start to his 2017 BTCC campaign with three strong results giving him the early points advantage at Brands Hatch.

The Honda driver qualified on the second row of the grid and picked up a second place finish in race one before a solid drive in race one saw him control proceedings from the front to secure his first victory of the year.

Amazingly, it marked the third successive season in which Shedden had won race two of the opening meeting, with the Scot then adding a seventh place finish in race three.

It means Shedden holds a six point lead in the championship standings ahead of race one winner Tom Ingram, with Andrew Jordan a point further back in third.

“It’s been a good weekend,” he said. “Brands Indy is still one of my least favourite circuits on the calendar and I’m pleased to get it out of the way, but I’m happy with the results we’ve been able to pick up.

“Even when we qualified in third spot, I didn’t honestly think we’d be so strong in terms of results as so much can happen on race day and the margins are so close; as we saw elsewhere. But the car is almost unscathed and we go again at Donington Park.”

Shedden’s strong weekend was in contrast to major title rivals Matt Neal, Colin Turkington and Jason Plato – all of whom lost points after being caught in start-line incidents.

However, the champion admitted that the trio would fight back in the races to come, with a change in the tyre regulations also adding an unknown element into the Donington Park weekend.

“Those guys had problems but you can’t put down to anything other than bad luck,” he said. “Those kind of incidents can happen at the start at Brands but they’ll be light going to Donington Park and they could lock out the front few rows whilst I try to get rid of the weight.

“We have the hard tyre as the option at Donington which also adds something new to the mix and we’ll have to see how that goes. We’ll be going in blind as we can’t run it in practice and need to see what advantage – if any – it provides.”