On a day when track conditions were some of the toughest possible, Andrew Jordan and Pirtek Racing were back on the podium at Oulton Park (5 June) during the fourth meeting of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.  The three races, run in front of one of the biggest crowds ever seen at the Cheshire track, left Andrew in the top six overall drivers and a close third in the Independents’ Trophy.Qualifying on Saturday ran in warm and dry conditions and Andrew was well in contention in fifth place while team mate Jeff Smith was 11th fastest in the 24-car field. But overnight, the weather changed and race day was hit by persistent light rain. That made tyre choice difficult, but Andrew opted for slicks on the front and wet tyres on back for race one. “It was the right call,” he said. Unfortunately, an early spin at the Hairpin cost him a lot of time. “It was my mistake,” said Andrew. “I out-braked myself into the Hairpin. I was heading for the wall forwards and I got onto the handbrake and spun it in backwards to avoid damage to the front of the car. I knew if I went in forwards I’d probably not be able to get going again.”While Andrew recovered to tenth, Smith had even more problems when he spun backwards into the side of another car and did major damage to the back of his car. A mammoth team effort got his car out for the second race, but a first lap spin left Jeff in a gravel trap.Meanwhile, Andrew raced to an excellent fourth place. “The new dampers we were using are designed not to work the tyres too hard in the dry, which is important,” said Andrew. “But in those conditions on slicks you need the front tyres to be working hard to get temperature into them. I struggled a bit, so to eventually get fourth was okay.”Conditions were still difficult for race three, but Andrew drove a storming race to fend off championship leader Matt Neal to secure another podium, his sixth in 12 races. “The third race was really good,” he reported. “The car felt good, but the pace just wasn’t there to go with the front two. Matt romped up to me pretty quickly and I was surprised I could hold him off as long as I did. We had some good side-by-side racing, so it shows that you can race cleanly without banging into each other. To get a podium was a good end to the day with a lot of hard work from the team.”Meanwhile, Smith ended a tough day with a good race to tenth place to reward a massive effort from the team to rebuild his car after the accident in the opening race.