Gordon Shedden: “It feels fantastic” after scoring first podium

Team WRT’s Gordon Shedden has said it’s been “a long time coming”, after scoring his first podium result of the 2018 World Touring Car Cup season in Race 1 at Wuhan.

The Audi Sport driver was on the pace from the start of the weekend, after a nightmarish weekend just a week ago at Ningbo.

Shedden and WRT have spent the time in-between looking at what to work on with the car, and the results changed around significantly right from the start in Free Practice 1.

In qualifying, Shedden put the car third on the grid, losing time in part due to traffic, but made quick progress at the start of the race and was up to fourth, and then overtook Yann Ehrlacher’s Honda after a long battle to take third on lap 12.

“It feels fantastic, it feels like it has been a long time coming,” said Shedden.

“It’s been a tough season so far; hopefully this means the cork in the bottle has popped and the results are more fruitful to the end of the season.

“It certainly feels like we have made a breakthrough with the car this week. We’ve made some changes which allowed me to drive the car rather than feeling like a passenger. It was fantastic to race with Yann, but I was very conscious he has a championship to fight for and any move had to be clean, had to be decisive and without contact, and that worked out perfectly. To get a one-three, two drivers on the podium for Audi Sport and Leopard and Lukoil is epic. We’ve just got to do the same again tomorrow.”