The eighth round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at the Knockhill circuit in Fife, Scotland saw the Pirtek Racing team successfully take home points from all three races of the day. 21 year-old Andrew Jordan once again starred for the team by taking home a ninth place and two eighth places during Sunday’s closely fought races.
A stomach virus left Jordan feeling under the weather on Saturday when the first of two practice sessions and qualifying took place. With only three tenths separating the cars from third to tenth, the battle for grid positions in qualifying was tough. Jordan and the Pirtek team were pleased to secure a top ten position for the first of Sunday’s three races, especially after an overheating engine before the session had given the team cause for concern.
Race one:
As the lights for race one went green, the melee of cars into the first corner created plenty of action ahead, but Jordan maintained position before the safety car was deployed for a single lap tour. For the majority of the first half of the race Jordan followed a closely packed group, with Rob Collard’s BMW just ahead. The duo traded places twice before Collard ran off track leaving Jordan in ninth. Mat Jackson’s BMW joined the fight and briefly passed Jordan, but two laps later the Pirtek car was back through to take ninth place at the flag.
Race two:
The second race of the day was a far more serene affair for the BTCC field. With the sun breaking through, the Pirtek Racing car once again maintained its position at the start of the race. After a quiet race, on lap 12 Jordan passed Saturday’s pole-sitting Chevrolet of Alex MacDowall and moved up to eighth place. A damaged left-front damper was causing handling issues for Jordan as the race reached its latter stages - leaving Jackson’s BMW to find a way past the stricken Vectra, but an incident ahead saw Jordan promoted back up to eighth place.
Race three:
During the final race of the day, Jordan and the Pirtek car made fantastic progress away from the line and soon found themselves running in third place after keeping a clean nose through various incidents. Jordan was in the midst of the championship battle, with series leader Jason Plato and Tom Onslow-Cole ahead, and Mat Neal chasing behind. Jordan kept a cool head throughout the race and maintained position until lap 24 when another damper failed in the Vectra, the sudden change in the cars handling saw Jordan take a brief off-track excursion, rejoining in eighth place.
Jordan added after the three races, “I think we suffered during the first two races of the day with a broken damper which we only fully discovered after the second race. After we rectified it the car felt a lot stronger, and in race three I was able to keep with the leading pair. I carried a lot of speed over one of the kerbs and after that the car didn’t handle as well and I ran off track, which cost us a podium position.
“It has been a fairly character building weekend for me, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so unwell during a race weekend and I really had to push my body a lot harder whilst I was in the car. With three races on a Sunday in the BTCC you realise how crucial it is to be at full fitness, but as I was reminded over the weekend -we’re only human!
“The next race is at Donington Park which is my home track and where I achieved my first ever pole position in the BTCC, so I’m really excited to get back out there and back to full health in two weeks time to score more points for Pirtek Racing.”
