Neal: Race three was a blur!

Even race three winner Matt Neal found yesterday's breathtaking Donington Park encounter difficult to describe after taking his second victory of the 2015 British Touring Car Championship for Honda.

Simon Evans

20 Apr 2015

Honda's Matt Neal admits his dramatic race three BTCC triumph was all a bit of a blur in yesterday's Donington Park finale.

Neal steered his way through a wild third and final race at Donington Park to record a milestone 55th BTCC victory while also emerging as the clear point's leader after two rounds of the championship ahead of Team BMR's Colin Turkington.

But the main talking point of race three happened when Neal and MG's Andrew Jordan - disputing the whereabouts of third position on lap six - locked horns at McLeans. The contact sent Jordan sideways and into the gravel on the exit of the right-hander while the Honda remained unscathed by the incident.

Neal - although receiving a verbal warning - kept his race victory following a steward's inquiry. The Team Dynamics driver felt he was perfectly entitled to go for the move due to the gap left by Jordan's MG.

Jordan went on to finish second behind the Civic Type-R but felt sure the stewards would switch around the race positions as a result of the contact.

"It was all a bit of a blur to be fair," Neal told crash.net. "The last six-laps I saw Flash [Shedden] get onto the back of the group and I'll almost radioed in because I thought 'he's light and fast, he's got a good chance of winning it' so I thought about trying to work him to the front.

"Then Andy [Jordan] ran a bit wide coming out of the Old Hairpin so I managed to gap him. I knew Collard was on his soft tyres so I got my head down and stopped playing around at going backwards because it could have gone horribly wrong.

"I passed him [Jordan] fair and square a few laps earlier as he left the door open. He sort of half covered the inside but left enough of a gap there so I went for it and he saw I was coming and then tried to close the door.

"He turned across me. You can't close a door when a 'travelling salesman' has already got his foot in it. I'm sure he'll have his view and I'll have mine."

MG has since lodged an appeal against the decision which will be heard at the following round of the championship at Thruxton in three weeks time.