Pirtek Racing’s Andrew Jordan secured three points finishes from a tough weekend on track as the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship headed to Donington Park for the second meeting of the season.
Andrew was optimistic about building on an encouraging debut in his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus at Brands Hatch, with hopes high of challenging for a first podium finish of the year.
After a solid showing in both free practice session, Andrew looked set to secure a place towards the head of the field in qualifying, despite an early scare when his car failed the ride height test and he was stripped of all of his times.
Returning to the circuit, Andrew briefly moved to the top of the times before being caught out by challenging wet conditions and spinning into the gravel at the Old Hairpin with just two minutes on the clock. With the session being halted and then restarted as a five minute blast for pole, Andrew could only watch on as others improved on the drying circuit, leaving him down in 25th for the opening race.
Despite his car not being at its best, Andrew fought his way through the field to take 14th place in race one, and then improved to twelfth in race two, despite early contact with the Chevrolet of Hunter Abbott costing him valuable time.
With the team making radical changes to the set-up of his car, Andrew fought his way forwards on the softer compound Dunlop tyre to lie inside the top eight, although he would slip back to tenth by the finish when the performance of the tyre started to drop away.
Andrew leaves Donington Park sitting just shy of the top ten in the championship standings and third in the Independents Trophy.
“What happened in qualifying really hurt our weekend and we weren’t able to fight back quite as we hoped to,” he said. “We were chasing the handling of the car a bit in the first two races but then we made some radical set-up changes for race three and it was transformed.
“In the early stages of the race, the car felt much better but I knew at some point that the performance of the soft tyre was going to drop away and that was exactly what happened. I think we managed it the best that we could and we’ve come away from the weekend with three points finishes, although we obviously wanted more.
“Given the pace that is in the car, this weekend is a bit of a missed opportunity but at the same time, it means we go to Thruxton in three weeks without any ballast and I’m going to come out fighting for three strong results.”
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