Gordon Shedden “not quite sure how” he kept series lead

Team Dynamics’ Gordon Shedden ended the Snetterton weekend as he started it at the top of the British Touring Car Championship standings, but admitted he didn’t know how he’d managed to keep his advantage over a bruising weekend.

The Scot was only able to qualify 21st in his Honda Civic Type-R, before battling to 13th in the first race and seventh in the second race.

Shedden looked set to follow Andrew Jordan home in the finale, before a late problem for the West Surrey Racing man handed him a lead he was never to lose. He now heads into his home meeting at Knockhill two points ahead of Colin Turkington, with just 11 points covering the top four.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Shedden said: “We got there in the end, it wasn’t pretty but we will take them any way we can at the minute. We’re not kidding ourselves, we need to find more from somewhere.

“You’ve got to have the rough weekends, and this has been a rough weekend for us. We will go to Scotland to try and get something there but we need to find some more genuine pace.”

Shedden had looked set to face strong pressure from Rob Collard in the final laps of race three, before he and team-mate Colin Turkington became embroiled in their own battle. And the reigning champion said this had contributed to being able to hang on to first in the final laps.

“The cars were strong in different places, and I was struggling with the tyres in the last four laps. Obviously they got excited together, and that helped me out a bit,” said Shedden.

“I was delighted – happy days! It just took the pressure off, because Rob was glued to my boot lid and I was waiting for the onslaught.”

The weekend was fraught with disagreements about boost levels, with the Team BMR Subarus having a boost reduction imposed before the final race.

Asked for his take on the situation, Shedden said: “I know how hard my car was to do a lap time in with 75kg [of ballast] yesterday, and he [Ash Sutton] coasted with 75kg in race two. That gives you something of an idea to the differences, but it is what it is.”

Thoughts now turn to Knockhill and, asked if he expected to perform better in Scotland, Shedden added: “No! But you never know what will happen. We will make the car as good as we can and fight tooth and nail to the end, like we have this weekend.”