Andrew Jordan heads into the final round of the 2013 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship in the driving seat for the driver’s title after extending his points lead during a frenetic Silverstone meeting.
The Eurotech Honda driver scored three top-six finishes in a weekend he had dubbed after Rockingham as one of damage limitation, extending his lead in the championship after his sixth and fifth place finishes in races one and three sandwiched a second place from a spectacular race two battle for the lead.
The solid points haul leaves Jordan entering the final round with a 34-point buffer heading into the final three races of the season at Brands Hatch, the Silverstone performance surprising Jordan who is on the brink of his maiden BTCC title.
“It’s brilliant to have extended the championship lead to 34 points”, said Jordan after the weekend. “I had a figure in my head of leaving Silverstone with a 15-point lead, having lost half of my lead, but it turned out so much better!
“In the first race I got up to sixth, which amazed me with the weight we had and the horsepower disadvantage we’ve got. I thought we were going to struggle to keep in the top 10 but I made some good moves through Copse and kept it nice and clean.”
While race one was a undramatic affair, the second encounter was an absolute classic thanks to an inspired decision to bolt a set of softer compound Dunlop tyres to the Eurotech Civic.
Jordan carved through the field to second place and hunted down leader Jason Plato for the lead, before the duo held a thrilling scrap for success in the remaining six laps of the race which saw Plato come out on top after a paint-exchanging moment saw Jordan briefly lead.
On the battle, Jordan commented: “We’d chosen to use our soft tyres in race two and I’m amazed no-one else did it. That was when we were going to be at our lightest.
“It worked out perfectly. I got through to second and chased after Jason Plato. I had a good old race with him. He nibbled me in the back at Luffield and I elected to settle for second, which was still a very good result.”
The third and final race of the day again pit Jordan and Plato into combat for the majority of the third encounter, Jordan surviving two further brushes with the MG driver at Luffield to secure another top-five result and head to Brands Hatch in two weekends time with an appealing championship lead with three races to go.
“I thought if we got a top eight it would be really good, as most people were on their soft tyres and we were back on the harder tyre. It was a hard race and I was over the moon to end up fifth.”
