Gordon Shedden said that he “couldn’t have asked for any more” from his trip to Thruxton last weekend, the Scot now leading the way in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship after three meetings.
The 2012 BTCC champion picked up his second win of the season in Sunday’s opening race of the day, surging into the lead with a strong start to beat pole-sitter Aron Smith into Allard for the first time before cruising to the Honda Yuasa Racing team’s fourth win in nine races with the latest Civic Type-R model.
Team-mate Matt Neal made it a one-two for Honda, before Shedden opened up a series lead of eight points over BMR Racing‘s Colin Turkington after results of third and fifth in the remaining two encounters of the day.
Speaking after the weekend, Shedden said: “We did a cracking job in qualifying – we had to really hang the car out to get those lap times – and that set us up nicely for Sunday. The car was perfectly-balanced in race trim, even with the weight on-board, and the first race was just fantastic.
“I got a great start and then just needed to control the gap, using the strengths of the Civic Type R to pull away. That earned us some extra kilos for race two, and to get a podium with maximum ballast on-board was awesome. We were really chuffed with that.
“The two cars ahead were both considerably lighter than me, and when I felt the tyres begin to fade, I focussed on protecting my third place.
“To then conclude the weekend with more strong points in race three was a real bonus – we couldn’t really have asked for any more.”
Looking ahead to the championship’s visit to Oulton Park on 6/7 June, Shedden commented: “As championship leader, I’ll go to Oulton now with a whole load of ballast in the car, but we’ll worry about that in a little while.”
Championship Standings After Round 3/10:
[table id=252 /]