Triple points score for Gordon Shedden in Slovakia

More points on the table at the Slovakiaring

Gordon Shedden had another strong race weekend at the Slovakiaring, picking up points in every race in his Audi Sport Leopard Racing Team RS 3 LMS, in what was on the whole a difficult weekend for the Belgian squad.

The three-time British champion put his Audi RS 3 LMS 17th on the grid for the first race of the weekend, qualifying just ahead of Yvan Muller's Lynk & Co 03 TCR. In the slippery conditions for the race on Sunday morning, the Scotsman was able to charge forward to finish 12th in a race full of incidents, pulling out a safe gap to Rob Huff's Volkswagen while battling with Muller throughout the race.

For the second and third races, Shedden would start 22nd, starting ahead of Andy Priaulx's Cyan Racing car, and in drier conditions, was still able to make good progress to fight his way into the top 15 points-paying positions.

A late-race dive between the Cupras of Daniel Haglof and Aurélien Panis saw him complete his ninth pass during the second race to get to 13th, crossing the line in formation with Audi Sport Leopard Racing team-mate Jean-Karl Vernay.

Having to do it all again from P22 for Race 3, this race was slightly less full of excitement, but Shedden again made his way forward and picked up points with 15th, again battling Muller's Cyan Lynk & Co during the closing stages of the race.

Shedden's now tied with Andy Priaulx on 22 points in the standings after three of ten race weekends, with the Audi Sport team sitting sixth in the teams' table with the points he and Vernay have picked up to-date.

Gordon Shedden said:

"Thankfully the races were a lot more exciting than qualifying. We had a bit of a bad day on Saturday, but the day off inbetween on Saturday gave us time to look at the data and try a few things on race day.

"Also, the weather helped and made things a little bit more unpredictable. If we'd had the same pace we had on race day in qualifying, I think it would have been made for a much better weekend for us, but it's positive that we had the pace on Sunday we did to fight our way forwards, that's the main thing.

"I had two good battles with Yvan Muller in Race 1 and 2, and we had the legs on (Rob) Huffy in the race too who was a good few seconds behind us, so it was a topsy-turvy weekend for everyone.

"It's good to keep plugging away at it and now we've got Zandvoort ahead where we did our pre-season test and it's one of the strong tracks for Audi, so hopefully we'll see a decent uptick in results there."


The next round of the 2019 FIA World Touring Car Cup takes place at the Zandvoort circuit in the Netherlands this weekend on May 19th-20th.

Over 100,000 spectators are expected as part of the Max Verstappen Race Day weekend, with the Red Bull Racing star always drawing huge crowds as he demonstrates his Formula 1 car across the two days.

Last year the Dutch circuit was a good fit for the Audi RS 3 LMS, with Gordon Shedden qualifying in top three for both races last year at the historic circuit.