A race win and two second places at Donington Park for Andrew Jordan gave Pirtek Racing its best ever weekend in the British Touring Car Championship. To make things even better for the team, teammate Jeff Smith finished the third day in a strong fifth place.
“It's been an incredible weekend for Pirtek Racing,” said Jordan. “We were the highest points' scorer and won the Team's Trophy. We're now in the championship hunt.”
Jordan began the weekend in style by topping the first free practice session. In qualifying he was fourth. “In a way, qualifying was disappointing as we'd been quickest in first free practice,” said Jordan. “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.”
In Race 1 Jordan finished in second place, behind winner Matt Neal. “I could see that Matt Neal was hurting his tyres a lot and so were we,” Jordan explained. “About four laps from the end I picked up a vibration and I started taking it very easy.”
In Race 2, he took the lead from Neal at the start and held on under pressure from James Nash to take his first win of the season. “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.”
Starting Race 3 from ninth courtesy of the reverse grid draw, Jordan made his way through to second in a chaotic race. “In the third race we just wanted to get a finish and we knew it would all happen on the first lap. 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.”
A strong weekend for Smith saw him finish 10th in Race 1, 13th in Race 2 and fifth in Race 3. “The team has been superb,” said Smith.
