Neal still hopeful of title charge

The reigning champion is third in the standings, and despite his 46-point deficit to Jason Plato he believes that his team will only get stronger in the second half of the season.

Fabrizio Giovanardi has closed in on Plato in the title hunt in recent weeks, but Neal is confident that he can close on both of the current title contenders.

"I still think we're very much in the hunt," he said. "We've got past the difficult part of the season.

"The fight could start to get interesting now. We need a bit of luck, but if Jason and Fabrizio have just one bad weekend we'll be on them."

Team Halfords didn't have their brand new Honda Civic ready in time to do much testing pre-season, but Neal believes that they have made a lot of progress during the last few race weekends.

"We took a big step forward between Thruxton and Croft and we've gone and made more progress with the car since then for Oulton Park," he added.

"It's been a case of collecting data every time we run the car, and everybody is rising to the challenge.

"If we keep going at the rate we are going then this car should be something else by the end of the season."