Halfords’ Historic 1-2-3

Matt Neal has almost doubled his lead in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship after leading Team Halfords to a historic 1-2-3 finish in the final race of the weekend at Knockhill.

With two Tornado jets from RAF Leuchars having swooped low over the Scottish circuit shortly before the opening race, Matt, Gordon ‘Flash’ Shedden and Gareth Howell performed the second demonstration of the day as they finished race three in formation, giving the team it’s first ever podium lock-out.

For the second meeting in a row, Matt qualified on the third row of the grid with maximum ballast in his Honda Integra but was quickly up to third place in the race after passing Fabrizio Giovanardi’s Vauxhall.

An early Safety Car period closed the pack up, but on the restart, second placed Darren Turner slowed up the pack to allow leader Jason Plato to break away. Although Matt was unable to pass the SEAT during the race, he would take second afterwards when Turner was given a twenty second penalty for the infringement.

From the front row in race two, the champion was involved in a titanic battle at the front with as many as six cars dicing for first place. However, entering the last lap in third place, Matt got caught up in a multi-car incident at Clark corner and finished in sixth place.

It all came together though in race three, as Matt made light work of pole-sitter Mark Proctor to take the lead. Although he dropped behind Colin Turkington at one point, Matt soon reclaimed first place and then ran in formation with Flash and Gareth to the flag to make it an all Halfords podium to end the weekend and extend his championship lead to 53 points.

“Coming out of Clark corner on the last lap of the second race I thought the car was going to be in a million pieces,” Matt said afterwards, “so to not only finish sixth in that race but then win the last one is great. I always say it is a team effort but you wouldn’t believe how much that has been true this weekend.

“I came to Knockhill not wanting to lose points to Colin or Jason but accepted that it might happen a little bit, so to come out having almost doubled my lead is a fantastic bonus that I didn’t expect.”

For Flash, it wasn’t the easiest of race days, although he was able to secure arguably the largest cheer of the weekend from the Scottish fans when he took his place on the podium in race three.

“It’s been one of those days,” he said. “I had a quick car and was confident but a puncture in race one meant I couldn’t fight at the front. A 1-2-3 for Team Halfords is absolutely great and I’m glad I ended my weekend with a trip to the podium.”

Gareth did exactly what was required from the weekend as he picked up two podium finishes to aid Team Halfords in the championship battle.

“I had a tough time at Snetterton,” he said, “but this weekend has been a real boost to the confidence and for the next two meetings I’ll lose more of my ballast so I’ll be chasing wins.”