Matt Neal

Matthew Stephen Phillip Neal (born 20 December 1966) is a British motor racing driver.

Born in Stourbridge, Neal started out in Motocross but moved into cars in 1988, driving in the Ford Fiesta XR2i category.

He was the British Group N Champion in 1990 and 1991.

He also co-drove a BMW M3 to victory at the 1990 Willhire 24 Hour race at Snetterton.

Neal made his BTCC debut with Pyramid Motorsport at the Silverstone round of the 1991 BTCC season driving a BMW M3.

For 1992 he joined his father's Team Dynamics team driving the BMW M3 which Will Hoy had taken to the championship title the year before.

The car was badly damaged in an accident forcing Neal to switch to the new BMW 318 for the final race of the season.

Neal is also a record 6 time BTCC Independents Champion having won the title in 1993, 1995, 1999, 2000, 2005 and 2006.

He is also a race winner in the European Touring Car Championship.

He is 6' 6" (2 m) tall, making him almost entirely unable to race single-seaters. He is also the Group Marketing Director at Rimstock, the alloy wheel manufacturer founded by his father Steve.

He won the Total Cup for drivers without manufacturer support in 1993, before joining Mazda for a season cut short by a huge crash in round five at Silverstone.

He rejoined Dynamics for 1995, remaining for several years and he occasionally humbled the big names, as well as winning the Independents' title three further times in 1995, 1999 and 2000.

Neal drove a one-off appearance in the British GT Championship during the 1998 British Grand Prix-supporting race.

He finished third, sharing a Porsche 911 GT1 with David Leslie.

After racing in one round of the British Touring Car Championship, Neal switched to the European Touring Car Championship's Super Touring category with RJN Motorsport and their Nissan Primera starting with Round 5 at Magny-Cours.

In 1999 he caused a sensation by winning a race at Donington Park in a Nissan Primera, the first Independent to do so in the modern era, winning him a £250,000 prize from BTCC series promoter Alan J. Gow.

He took a further win a year later, having been considered a driver to cause a surprise in the championship.

The championship's regulations changed for 2001, and Neal briefly joined Peugeot Sport UK before sitting out most of the season to race in the European Touring Car Championship.

He returned with egg:sport in 2002 driving a Vauxhall Astra Coupé alongside Paul O'Neill.

A one-off appearance in the ASCAR championship at the end of 2002 saw him running as teammate to his future rival Jason Plato.

For 2003 he switched to Honda Racing to drive a Honda Civic Type R, the start of long and mainly undisturbed relationship with Honda.

Once again he finished 3rd in the championship ahead of teammates Tom Chilton and Alan Morrison.

Neal rejoined Team Dynamics (now with Halfords sponsorship), finishing 5th in the overall Drivers Championship and 4th in the Independents Championship.

Neal is a triple BTCC Champion having won the British Touring Car Championship in 2005, 2006 and 2011.

For 2005 the team developed a Honda Integra from its basic road-going form, which was an unusual move as independent teams have historically raced ex-works cars, but the team's efforts were rewarded as Neal eventually took the drivers' title in the last round at Brands Hatch.

Dynamics, as Team Halfords also clinched the Teams and Independent Teams Championships.

Neal finished every single race in the points, the first driver to do so since the calendar expanded to 30 races per year.

In 2006, Neal drove the No. 1 Honda Integra and captured the championship again with a string of consistent finishes; 4th place in round 28 being enough to clinch his second title.

After 2 years without a mechanical failure, Neal had a suspension failure before the start of the final race.

BTC-spec cars such as the Integra were no longer eligible for the main 2007 title, so Dynamics switched to a Honda Civic, using some of their existing running gear but doing development themselves.

Neal won the third race of the season, but overall the SEAT and Vauxhall entries were faster, leaving Neal unable to fight for the title.

A huge crash in race 1 of the second meeting at Brands Hatch left him briefly hospitalised; the lost points from this saw teammate Gordon Shedden outpoint him to finish 3rd overall, with Neal 4th.

He attracted controversy during the season's final race, in which Fabrizio Giovanardi and Jason Plato fought for the drivers' title.

Having signed on as a Vauxhall driver for 2008, Neal let Vauxhall drivers Giovanardi and Tom Chilton through without a fight, but did not do the same for SEAT driver Jason Plato, ensuring Giovanardi would win the title.

In his first year for VX Racing in 2008, he took just one win at Rockingham, while teammate Giovanardi took five wins on the way to retaining his title.

Neal finished the year 5th in the standings.

He finished 13th in his first race before returning to the series two rounds later at Oulton Park with the Auto Trader Techspeed Team in another BMW M3.

After that race he would race for the team two rounds later at Donington Park.

He finished the championship placed 14th in the drivers standings on 266 points, taking one win in the final round in Portugal.

He finished 3rd in the championship, ahead of his teammate on 145 points.