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Drama as Honda duo suffer fuel surge problems in BTCC testing

By MJP Media | 3 June 2012

All four of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship’s NGTC-spec Honda's tested at Pembrey last week but there were serious issues for Team Dynamics driver Gordon Shedden ahead of this weekend's Oulton Park meeting.

Matt Neal's car was fixed but Shedden's still had problems

The Pirtek Racing duo of Andrew Jordan and Jeff Smith completed two days of running at the Welsh circuit with the factory Honda Yuasa Racing Team joining them on Thursday with both its Civics for Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal.

Honda Yuasa Racing duo Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal

While the Pirtek Racing team were enjoying good feedback from the sessions, the Team Dynamics squad behind the factory Civics were suffering a fuel surge problem on both Neal and Shedden's cars. After a lot of effort the team were able to finally cure the problem on Neal's car but were unable to resolve the issue on Shedden's.

Reigning BTCC champion Neal, from Worcestershire, said "Unfortunately it meant Gordon didn't get a lot of running done and we're still scratching our heads a bit. We'll need to try and run his car again next week to make sure we're on top of it before go to Oulton Park. From that point of view it was frustrating just as it was when it started to drizzle later in the day, but in between we were able to get in some mileage with my car and it's clear the team has been putting a lot of work in back at base since the last round at Thruxton. We focused on optimising the NGTC 'package' which is something most teams are still figuring out, plus squeezing a bit more speed from the car. I'd say we've still taken a good step forward."

Andrew Jordan enjoyed a productive test at Pembrey

Meanwhile the Pirtek Racing duo of Andrew Jordan and Jeff Smith enjoyed two trouble-free days. Jordan said: "It was a very productive test - we got through all sorts we've not been able to try so far. The car was already pretty good so it's not like we were going to find huge chunks of time, more little bits in lots of areas. It was nice to drive the car away from the pressures of a free practice session which meant we could just stick rigidly to our planned programme without any distractions." Smith added "We all came away very upbeat by the test. We've gathered a lot of ideas in the first few meetings and this was our chance to try them all out and concentrate on the finer detail of what's likely to work or not before we go into a race weekend."

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