Matt Neal took another step towards the top of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship drivers standings due to a trio of top ten finishes at Croft meaning he jumps into third as we head into the Summer break.
Struggling to match the pace of the leading runners in qualifying, Matt was to line-up fifteenth on the grid for race one.
With his vast experience on show, the Halfords Yuasa Racing veteran battled his way into the points claiming a ninth placed finish by the time he crossed the finishing line.
Race two was more strongly contested as a collision with the former Dynamics Honda Civic Type R of Dan Lloyd dropped Matt down the order. Luckily since it was nearer the start of the race, Matt managed to work his way back through the field and despite the earlier off track excursion, managed to finish in seventh.
Fourth was where Neal was to finish in the final race of the day. Although he had the pace to fight for a podium finish, he wasn’t able to pass the car in third but he wasn’t too disheartened with where he finished the day.
After the events in Yorkshire, Matt jumped from sixth in the drivers standings up to third and has sent out a message of title intent to all of his leading rivals.
“We really had to fight for every single point there, and my car ended up looking a bit battered and bruised.” Said Matt after the race.
“We know there was some boost equalisation going on, so that likely had a bearing on the weekend. We lacked speed in qualifying, but we came through well to crack the top ten in race one and we could have finished a fair way further up the order in race two.
“It would have been nice to finish on the podium in race three; ultimately, we didn’t quite have enough but fourth was still a very solid result and we scored good points across the weekend towards the Drivers’, Manufacturers’ and Teams’ championships, which is a positive way to go into the summer break.”
