Andrew Jordan’s 2018 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship title hopes were shattered last weekend at Silverstone when the reliability of his BMW 125i M Sport hampered his running on the Sunday.
The BMW Pirtek Racing driver had qualified in a competitive fifth place on Saturday and with the rear-wheel drive of his BMW, a great start was to be expected.
Andrew duly delivered this great start in the first race and began hunting down the leader for victory come the end of the race. However, this wasn’t to be when the ITV4 audiences saw the Pirtek BMW peel off into the pits.
Eventually we found out that he had suffered a throttle issue and this was to be the turning point in his slim title hopes. He also had to start at the back of the field for race two.
Despite more reliability woes in the second race when he lost his power steering, Andrew had managed to work his way towards the points. However, contact undid his hard work and he dropped to a disappointing twenty-second.
With the last flicker of a championship candle finally extinguished following this bitterly awful weekend, Andrew was now racing for honour in the final race of the day and the 2013 champion showed what he was made of.
A ninth place finish was the reward for a driver who had expected so much more before the final race of the day. Despite now being out of contention for the full honours, he’s still within a shout of reaching the top three positions.
Following the weekend, AJ spoke of his disappointment,
“This has to be one of the most frustrating weekends I’ve had because we had a car that was so strong but haven’t been able to benefit from it.
“We went a different way with my car and we were quick from the moment we hit the track, and to be P5 on the grid despite the weight put us in a really good place to score some strong points.
“In the opening race, I was comfortable in third place and wasn’t taking any risks when we had an issue with the throttle body that put me out. Then in race two, I was battling an electrical issue that affected the power steering but was still on course to score until someone else turned me round.
“Race three surprised me because the car was a lot better on the hard tyre than I expected and we came through strongly to ninth with some good overtaking moves, but that only heightens the frustration to an extent about what we could have achieved this weekend.
“We should have been in contention for the title at Brands Hatch, but I’ll still go there pushing as hard as I can to end the season on a high.”
