Gordon Shedden admitted that points are now more important than ever after extending his Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship points lead over Jason Plato in race one at Silverstone.
The Honda Yuasa Racing driver moved 21 points clear of the Team BMR driver after finishing third in the opening race from Northampton, Plato suffering from a puncture on the penultimate lap that left him out of the points.
Shedden said afterwards that he now values the remaining points in his quest for a second BTCC title, telling TCF: “You’ve got to try and score points wherever you can.
“I’m still not going to let anyone past. I was careful a little bit with Andy [Jordan] at the start because he had a bit more pace, but he was actually helping me with a slipstream which probably helped my lap time for race two.
“Obviously, I’m not going to roll over but I’m also trying to finish. Then again, at the end I didn’t want to give any places away!”
Shedden’s showing was made more impressive by the fact the Honda Civic Type-R was laden with 75kg of success ballast, something of which the 2012 champion says he will be happy to relinquish in race two.
“It’s a bit ying and yang, but great points with 75kg on the car. It certainly looked like the soft tyre was good in that race so I’ll look forward to that with less ballast.
“We’ve got a really good balance”, added the Scot on the pace of the Civic Type-R. “She was a bit lively in that race at times but with the weight with didn’t have enough in the right places to have a go [at Jordan].”
With main rival Plato failing to score points in race one, Shedden now takes a 21-point lead into race two of the day, starting sixth on the grid compared to Plato in 11th.
On the problems suffered by main rival Plato, Shedden concluded: “You want to win it fair and square and win it the hard way. You’ve just got to try and get points.”