A fantastic weekend for Andrew Jordan and Pirtek Racing, with a race win and two second places, made it the best ever in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park over the weekend (16/17 April).
“It’s been an incredible weekend for Pirtek Racing,” said Andrew. “We were the highest points’ scorer and won the Team’s Trophy. We’re now in the championship hunt.” To make it a truly stunning weekend for Pirtek Racing, team mate Jeff Smith had a great run, culminating in fifth place in the final race of the day.
The weekend started in great style as Andrew set the pace in the first free practice session, before qualifying fourth fastest. Jeff was just two places behind. “In a way, qualifying was disappointing as we’d been quickest in first free practice,” said Andrew.” I knew the Hondas would be quick, but we should have been third and we just ran out of time doing a damper change before the start of qualifying. The car wasn’t as good as it should have been so to still get fourth was pretty good.”
That pace carried forward into race one when Andrew chased Matt Neal’s Honda all the way to finish second. “I could see that Matt Neal was hurting his tyres a lot and so were we,” he explained. “About four laps from the end I picked up a vibration and I started taking it very easy.”
From second on the grid for race two, Andrew got a tremendous start to beat Neal to the first corner and then drove a faultless race to fend off a determined challenge from James Nash. “We changed the car set-up a little bit for race two and it was mint. It stayed better for longer and there wasn’t a chance in that race to slow down because Nash was right on it. The one thing I really wanted to do was win from the front, and not from a reverse grid, and win with success ballast on the car. So that was pretty special.”
The reverse grid draw for race three put Andrew down in ninth place on the grid and he predicted that there would be drama on the opening lap as the faster drivers battled through to the front. Sure enough, the opening lap was a chaotic affair, but Andrew drove with great maturity to steer through the incidents and his reward was another second place to wrap up the best weekend of his racing career. “In the third race we just wanted to get a finish and we knew it would all happen on the first lap,” he said. “I was just very careful and picked my way through. To get second from ninth on the grid carrying 45kg of success ballast was fantastic.” Jeff scored a fantastic fifth overall to complete a fabulous weekend for Pirtek Racing. “The team has been superb,” said an elated Smith.
