Tough day at Snetterton for the Jordans

It was a trying weekend at Snetterton for Mike and Andrew Jordan in the latest three races in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship on Sunday (13 July).While Mike took an 11th and a ninth place finish, Andrew was destined to retire from all three races. "It's been a frustrating weekend," said Andrew. "We haven't shown what we can do. It's been the toughest weekend in the BTCC so far for me."The John Guest cars ran strongly in qualifying, posting their best ever lap times at Snetterton as Mike qualified 12th, just seven-tenths away from the leading cars once the flying SEATs were taken out of the equation, as the pace of the turbo-diesel cars left everyone else struggling. Andrew was just a tenth of a second slower.Andrew's first race was short-lived, however, as a brake problem pitched him out of the race. "The brake pedal went to the floor and it goes so far that it puts a lot of rear brake bias into the car, so that threw me into the field at Sear. I'm pretty glad it happened there and not going into the Esses."Mike raced through to 11th place, despite a late race misfire that started when a battery cable started to fracture. "The pace was good and the handling was beautiful," said Mike, who went on to finish ninth in race two. "That was as good a pace as we could get out of the Integra at Snetterton," he said. Unfortunately, Andrew was soon out when the Chevrolet of Harry Vaulkhard spun in front of him at the Esses and the front of the Integra was damaged as a result.Mike's third race was over before it started with a rare driveshaft failure, which may have been a legacy of bouncing over the kerbs at Russell in the previous race. It is the normal racing line for the tight corner, but can lead to transmission damage.Andrew, meanwhile, was forced out with gearbox problems. "From the very start it didn't go into fifth gear cleanly and that hurt quite a lot when I was trying to go past the slower cars. I was catching Vaulkhard and I came out of the Bomb Hole and it just went straight back into fourth, so I just brought it in before it did it again and damaged the engine.""We've clearly got some problems with component supply on the gearbox," said Mike at the end of a frustrating day. The team will not switch focus to the next three BTCC races at Oulton Park on 27 July.


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