NEAL WARNS RIVALS HE'S STILL IN TITLE HUNT
Reigning Dunlop British Touring Car Champion Matt Neal has
warned that his Team Halfords squad has made another performance
gain with its new Honda Civic ahead of this weekend’s
rounds at Oulton Park and believes he could still go on to
capture a third straight title.
Neal will arrive at Oulton in Cheshire – the half-way
stage of the season – lying third in the championship.
He is 46 points (equivalent to three race wins) behind the
two leaders, SEAT’s Jason Plato and Vauxhall’s
Fabrizio Giovanardi, but believes that both can still be caught.
Indeed, his team-mate Gordon Shedden qualified the Civic
on pole position at Croft three weeks ago and both he and
Neal looked like potential winners.
“I still think we’re very much in the hunt,”
said Neal. “We’ve got past the difficult part
of the season. Jason and Fabrizio need just one crap weekend
and we’ll be on them.
“We took a big step forward between Thruxton and Croft
and we’ve gone and made more progress with the car since
then for Oulton.
“The fight could start to get interesting now. We need
a bit of luck. We had a very fast car at Croft, but the luck
wasn’t there. If that luck changes then we’re
still in the hunt.”
Neal has also praised Vauxhall for the development it has
put into making its new Vectra model a winner – Giovanardi
has won five times in the last three meetings to close to
within two points of Plato, who has four victories so far
this season in his Leon.
He added: “SEAT doesn’t seem to do anything with
its two cars and it’s not because I think the team has
reached a plateau with them either. The team just seems to
turn up, polish them and run them.
“It’s Vauxhall which is pushing incredibly hard.
Before the season started, we looked at running the bigger
Honda Accord instead of the smaller Civic and thought it was
too big a car, but Vauxhall has gone for the Vectra, a similar
size, and made it a winner. Hats off to the team and the development
isn’t finished yet.
“We’re really looking forward to Oulton, but
so will be the SEATs, the Vauxhalls and the BMWs. Everyone
seems to think it could be their kind of circuit. Someone
is going to be going home disappointed.”
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