2020zoom On The Road

2020zoom's Matt Neal exclusive interview. Pt 1

Leaving the vileness of the early start aside, the annual trek to the Autosport-International show is the very thing to get your motor racing juices flowing throughout this turgid out of season period.

My sparing partner for the day is my good friend and 2009 British Leaders Hill climb champion, Simon Fidoe.
Despite the tightening up of media accreditation, the halls were busy. Still too many spotty kids with cruddy camera phones making nuisances of themselves for my liking: that’s something you good people at Autosport might like to address before next year.

The Autosport stage was busy conducting interviews throughout the day but we were given a spot with Matt Neal. This wasn’t so much an interview as three car nuts sat yakking for half an hour that went like this:

2020zoom: What are the specific challenges of touring car driving?

Matt Neal: Because it’s a 15-lap sprint race, our thing is all about qualifying. By the time the first five laps are done, unless you’ve got a car which is very kind on its tires – and the Vauxhall is better these days – you’re going to be fighting. If you can make up two or three places you’re doing well.

2020zoom: Did you find a big difference when you moved from Team Halford?

MN: Yes and no. They’re both very good teams but I found they did everything at Vauxhall completely different to get to the same place.

2020zoom: How many people do you have on your crew?

MN: At Triple Eight there are about 40 people looking after three cars.

2020: But you each have your own crews?

MN: Yes

2020zoom: And is it very competitive between the three crews?

MN: You all have to work together but, shit yes. Your own crew, your own engineers, which was a bone of contention last year because everyone on my crew was quite laid back. Everyone on Fabrizio's crew was very competitive. I’ve always said that team laid-back will never beat team competitive over a season. This was one of the things we’ve been trying to address throughout the latter half of last season and over the winter and now I think we’re alright.

2020zoom: How much testing do you do, Matt?

MN: In the season we’re very restricted. We’re only allowed four days. In the old Supertouring era in the 90s and you’d do ten race meetings which would start on a Thursday Morning. You’d do all day Thursday, all day Friday testing then qualifying Saturday and race on Sunday. Then the weeks you weren’t racing, you’d be off testing somewhere else but now that’s all gone. To cut costs we’re now allowed four days throughout the whole season. We do ten meetings still, rock up on a Saturday morning, have two free practice sessions to tune the car but you can’t do too much because you’ve got to focus on the circuit. We then do qualifying on the Saturday afternoon and race on the Sunday. Besides that we’re allowed just four days throughout the season and everything else has to be done before the first race of the season or during the winter so the team will develop bits throughout the year which we might not necessarily try. I was very busy after the last race in October and November testing new bits which basically they’d got in a big pile.

2020zoom: So most of the real testing’s done out of season?

MN: Yes. The bulk of stuff. We’ll literally go and camp in Spain for a week. My wife is pregnant and she’s due on the 30th of January but then I’m due out in Spain for a week at Valencia on the 4th of February then I’m back for two weeks then I’m back out there for another week.
2020zoom: You’ve already touched upon the financial restraints hitting motor sport. How do you feel this might affect the BTCC? We’ve seen Honda pull out of F1, Subaru and Suzuki pulling out of WRC and sponsors withdrawing. Is it becoming an issue yet?

MN: Yes, Dynamics are in the same boat because they survive on sponsorship. It ain’t gonna be easy. You’ve got teams like Seat pulling out but you’ve got a lot of other teams talking about coming in. Companies are out there still and they’re still spending money because they need to market their products. If you look at the value for money a top touring car team would probably be 2.5 million pounds for a series. Compared to Honda who were putting £300m into F1. The way the rules are stacked in touring cars everyone’s got a fighting chance. We had nine winners last year from six different teams.

2020zoom: What’s the biggest appeal of touring cars for you?

MN: It’s the me-verses-you. You might not have as good a car as me but you might be able to outwit me. There’s a lot of race-craft involved and the way the regulations are stacked if you win you’ll get weight added on to pull you back and slow you down so its close. It used to be the combat side but as I’ve got older that starts to get a bit more stressful because as you’re more experienced people expect you to bring the car home in one piece so the art becomes staying out of trouble, looking after your car and anticipating the hit because it is a physical world out there and you are going to get hit but putting your car in the place where the hits don’t compromise you too much or they compromise the other person more.