The second half of this year's fast and furious British Touring Car Championship kicks off at Croft in North Yorkshire with Honda Racing becoming an increasing strong force among the front-runners. The Honda Civic Type-R racer has already proved itself to be the most competitive of this year's newcomers and the team is targeting its first podium finish of the season on Sunday.

After the opening ten rounds, Andy Priaulx currently holds seventh place in the BTCC points table while his Honda Racing team-mate Alan Morrison is in eleventh position. Despite the newness of the exciting project, both drivers have been regular top six performers and have narrowly missed several top three finishes during the first half of the season. Indeed, Priaulx was holding a strong third last time out at Mondello Park before a safety car period let those behind catch up and then bundle the unfortunate Guernseyman into retirement with accident damage.

Honda Racing team principal Mike Earle comments, "Croft presents a wide variety of challenges with its mixture of fast sweeping corners and slow first gear chicane and we're optimistic that this could be a good weekend for us."

Adding to the air of self-belief within the Honda camp, both drivers arrive in the North East for Sunday's two showdowns with little in the way of 'success ballast'. Having been knocked out of the previous round, Priaulx will be running at minimum weight while Morrison will carry an extra 15kg of ballast having finished sixth at Mondello.