Neal storms to Knockhill winposted in BTCC14 | 08 | 2016
HONDA’S MATT NEAL stormed through from eighth on the grid to win the second of today’s three British Touring Car Championship races at Knockhill.
The three-time BTCC champ won a classic encounter, finally muscling his way passed the Subaru of long-time leader and Race 1 winner Jason Plato at the Hairpin with just two laps remaining. It was Neal’s 59th BTCC win.
Plato was nudged back to the third step on the podium when championship leader Sam Tordoff squeezed past on the coat tail of Neal’s Honda.
It was another difficult race for local hero Gordon Shedden. The defending BTCC champ finished ninth in his Honda, immediately ahead of the Mercedes of Dalkeith 19-year-old Aiden Moffat. Inverness-based Dave Newsham finished 14th.
Tordoff heads into the day’s final race at 5pm leading the championship by just three points ahead of Neal, with Rob Collard — who stormed through from 17th on the grid to finish fifth in his BMW — third, just 15 points behind Tordoff. Shedden has slipped to fifth, 37 points off the lead.
DRIVER QUOTES — RACE 2:
P1 MATT NEAL:
“At the start I thought we had a chance. Then I thought we had no chance. Then I got bottled up behind Andy (Jordan), I could see mat (Jackson) was coming up behind me in the other Ford on the soft-compound tyres.
“Then I could see Andy was starting to struggle a bit on his tyres; but the soft-compound tyres were definitely the choice for this weekend.
“I got up behind Jason (Plato), he was playing with Sam (Tordoff) a bit, and I was able to capitalise and get passed them at the Hairpin. It was clear Jason was really struggling with his tyres.
“But my we Honda Civic was monstrous right to the end: there was no way Sam was going to get back passed me.
“It’s a great result for the team: it’s been tough weekend for us so far. It also bodes well with Gordon (Shedden) going on the softs in the final race of the day.”
P2 SAM TORDOFF:
“I’m happy with that. It was chaos at times, and a lot of the time I didn’t know which way to go because Jason was struggling on his tyres with all the weight onboard.
“We had a great car. We made a few tweaks after Race 1, and the car was a different league. We’ve got a good points haul already this weekend, so now we’ll see what happens in the final race.
“The Subarus have their own internal battle gong on: I don’t think either wanted to let the other car win. I wasn’t too sure how I was going to get passed Jason, and when Matt came through I thought, ‘right, Matt’ll stick his nose in where it hurts” and luckily I was able to follow him through.
“All credit to Matt, he drove terrific race. I’m happy with the result; I’ll take that.”
P3 JASON PLATO:
“Everything was going ok, then for some reason I had a big moment at the Hairpin and nearly spun the car. The oversteer was getting worse and worse, then after that for one reason I felt the car had a puncture on the left-rear.
“I called in and they said, ‘you’re not the only one; that’s been reported’. It then took me some time to recalibrate how to drive the car because it was so oversteery.
“I think I may have picked up a knock early in the race when Colin (Turkington) tried to come round the outside of me, and I may actually have a very slow puncture.
“It’s a shame, because I was really enjoying that. I really had to think how to combat the attacks from behind, but I just couldn’t quite hang on.
“But with everything going on, I’m delighted to get third place. When we started the race, the target was a podium, and to achieve it with 70-odd kilos on the car, we’ll take that.”
Related: Shedden ready for "ballistic BTCC weekend"
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Jim McGill