It was a tough weekend for Andrew Jordan and Pirtek Racing when the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season resumed at Snetterton over the weekend (6/7 August). Andrew’s Vauxhall Vectra struggled for pace all weekend and he came away with only a single top ten finish to show for his efforts.
The high-speed East Anglian track hosted rounds 16, 17 and 18 of the 2011 schedule and it proved to be Andrew’s toughest weekend of the year so far as the team battled to find the usual front-running pace for the Vectra. A single ninth place was much less than Andrew has come to expect this year, while team mate Jeff Smith in the other Pirtek Racing Vauxhall Vectra topped his day with 11th place in the opening race.
Andrew knew that he would struggle for speed as soon as the first free practice session started. “We normally roll the car out for free practice and it is good from the start,” he said. “But this weekend the car just felt completely different. In qualifying I was driving the wheels off it.” However, instead of his regular top five qualifying result, he ended Saturday down in 11th place, with Jeff four places further back on the 26-car grid.
Into race day on Sunday, things were only a little better. “We changed the dampers overnight and found a little bit and the car was better, but we were still a chunk off the pace,” said Andrew. His aim to make up places early in the opening race was thwarted when Jason Plato and Matt Neal made contact and caused chaos as Neal spun across the front of the pack. “It all kicked off at Turn 2 on the first lap and I couldn’t make much progress,” said Andrew after finishing 11th.
“In the second race I finished ninth, but it was a struggle to pass people I normally go by without too much of a problem,” he reported. Then, on the first lap of the third and final race he was turned into a spin after a clash with the BMW of Rob Collard. “It was one of those things, really,” he said. “From lap four to eight we were in the top four lap times, which was some encouragement. But we were really struggling against the Fords in a straight line and it was frustrating being caught behind Chilton.”
Now, the team will work to identify the problem with the car before the next three races at Knockhill (Scotland) over the weekend of September 3/4.
