Pirtek Racing’s Andrew Jordan made a solid start to his 2016 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship campaign at Brands Hatch, picking up a hat-trick of points finishes to leave him well placed in the early season standings.
The season opener marked Andrew’s first race weekend at the wheel of his new Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus, and he fought back well from a challenging qualifying session to put himself firmly in the mix on race day.
Having qualified 14th on the grid in changeable weather conditions on Saturday, Andrew produced a battling drive in the opening race of the weekend to secure eleventh place, despite being hampered by a clash on the first lap and then an issue that left him down on power with his car.
With the team having resolved the problem in time for race two, Andrew was able to show what he could do with the Focus, racing his way through the pack on the soft compound Dunlop tyre to finish just off the podium in fourth; posting the fastest lap of the race in the process.
From sixth on the grid for race three, Andrew survived a lurid slide at turn one that saw his car briefly sideways in front of the field to match his earlier result after a dramatic fight to the line with the Honda of Matt Neal.
Making a move for position out of the final corner, Andrew clinched the place by just 0.037secs and now heads away from the weekend sitting in fifth in the championship standings, just nine points away from top spot.
“After a difficult time in qualifying and then in the opening race, things turned out to be okay in the end,” he said. “Whilst we had done quite a bit of testing over the winter, we’d only done limited running in dry conditions so there was an element of learning this weekend, but I feel we got the most we could from races two and three.
“Whenever you move to a new team, you take time to get used to how things work, but I feel I’ve settled in well with the guys at Motorbase and I would have loved to reward them with a trophy in a first weekend together. Had things gone differently earlier in the weekend, then that might have been possible, but we scored good points when we could and that is what matters when it comes to the season as a whole.
“We know we haven’t quite got the ultimate pace in the car at the moment but we aren’t far away, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to challenge when we head to Donington Park for round two.”
Pirtek is Europe’s number one provider of hydraulic solutions and mobile hose replacement, with over 170 centres supported by over 700 mobile service workshops throughout Europe; offering solutions to a number of business sectors, including the automotive industry.
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