A FOUR-SECOND penalty failed to take the shine off another impressive weekend for Gordon Shedden in the race for the British Touring Car Championship crown.

The Dalgety Bay driver heads into the summer break just seven points behind series leader Colin Turkington after enjoying a fruitful fifth round at the Croft circuit in Yorkshire, claiming two second places and a fourth to claim a 47-point haul.

That total could have been better had he not incurred a time penalty to demote him from third place on the final race of the weekend, after an incident involving Mat Jackson's Ford Focus, but the 35-year-old was pleased with the performance of his Honda Civic Tourer.

Turkington, having won the opening two races, was forced to retire with clutch problems in his ebay BMW that allowed Shedden to close the gap in the standings and he said, "We've closed the gap but only because Colin didn't finish in race three and we can't rely on him doing that every weekend from now until the end of the year.

"The BMWs have taken a big step forward in the last couple of race meetings, so we need to use the break wisely. We'll go testing but the car feels fantastic and compared to the other front-wheel drive cars we're right up there.

"It's testament to everyone at Team Dynamics - to build a new car and be in the hunt, scoring points and podiums is brilliant." Shedden continued, "To win the championship, it's consistency that's going to do it, and sometimes you have to grind out results. I thought that this was going to be a tough weekend but podiums are brilliant and I've scored points in every race this year and that's never happened to me before.

"The car I had under me was very good, especially on the soft tyres, but I just couldn't use it in the right places. I didn't really do anything wrong, the doors just didn't open for me to make progress.

"I was hustling Colin at the time he had his mechanical problem and I would definitely have had a go at him. You never wish bad luck on anyone but it has helped our cause. But we've seen how quickly everything can change." Shedden is second in the standings on 221 points, 21 clear of Andrew Jordan in third place. The championship resumes at Snetterton on 2nd-3rd August before the West Fifer's home race at Knockhill on 23rd-24th August.