Whilst BJ Chong and Paul McNeilly stood on the podium to celebrate their Lotus 1000km win last November, their star driver Paul O'Neill was on his way to the Touring Car Awards.  Four months after his blistering performance in that race, he finally collected his trophy from team mate Paul McNeilly during a BTCC test session at Brands Hatch today.  Pleased to add the silverware to his collection and his name to the list of Brands Hatch 1000km winners, Paul provided some belated thoughts on the race:

“Paul (McNeilly) only lives up the road from here and he’s been ringing me for ages to come and get the trophy, so it was nice to see him and to get the trophy because it was a spectacular event that I had to leave early for the Touring Car awards, so it’s nice to be back at the track and to get my trophy and hopefully I’ll be back to do it next year, it’ll be great to do again.”

One of the main talking points about the race was the intense battle between O’Neill and Jamie Stanley in the GWS Motorsport Exige.  Did he feel that his pace was a factor in the other car retiring later in the race?

“I think the difference was that I was changing at 7,000 revs and Jamie was changing at 9,000, so with my endurance expertise (that I haven’t got any of!), I just thought I’d better change early, so it was my race to do as well as I could have but at the same time it was to give the other guys a chance to drive in their own car and it ended up really well for us but that was a good battle with Jamie, he’s a good friend of mine, he knows the cars and it was in tricky conditions, I enjoyed it.”

O’Neill is still working on a race package for this year and was helping erstwhile BTCC team mate John George with testing.  We wish him all success in his endeavours but if it doesn’t work out he knows where to go: “fingers crossed it comes off for me but you might see me in the Lotus Cup, you never know!”