The Team Dynamics Honda squad have confirmed that with Matt Neal’s chances of a fourth championship now looking slim, the team will be putting all their focus on supporting reigning champion Gordon Shedden’s pursuit of his own fourth title.

Neal sits sixth in the standings, 93 points back from new championship leader Colin Turkington, and although he’s mathematically still in contention with 201 points remaining from the final three rounds. However, with the championship being so close up front, and with team West Surrey Racing team-mates Colin Turkington and Rob Collard both fighting to take points from each other for the title, the Honda team has been the first to confirm it is fully adopting team orders, after the Subaru Team BMR showed signs of partially implementing them at Knockhill.

Subaru’s Jason Plato was still able to take the win in the first race ahead of Subaru team-mate and title challenger Ash Sutton, but James Cole was asked to relinquish his fourth place to Sutton in the third and final race of the day.

“At this stage of the season, with my points deficit to the top of the table, I’ve got to be realistic – and that means turning my focus to the Teams’ and Manufacturers’ battles and helping ‘Flash’, because he is still well in the hunt,” said Neal. “We have always worked very well together, so hopefully we can tickle the top six in qualifying at Rockingham and then move forward from there.”

Shedden, who dropped to third in the championship at his home race at Knockhill after going in as the points leader, was still confident, with some circuits more likely to suit the Honda Civic Type-R coming up.

“It’s the BTCC so anything can still happen, but the title battle is likely now boiling down to four drivers and we need to start scoring some big points again after a difficult few weekends,” he said. “Having Matt’s support will unquestionably help; playing the team game has always been one of our strengths as a pairing, so I’m sure we will be a formidable force working together.”