Three top six finishes, topped by a hard-won podium, made it a good day for Andrew Jordan and Pirtek Racing at Rockingham during rounds 22, 23 and 24 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at the Corby track on Sunday (7 September).
It has been a turbulent mid-season for the reigning champion, with an uncharacteristic error in free practice at Snetterton kicking off a clutch of mid-table results, however Rockingham marked a strong return to form as Jordan netted a trio of top results.
The strong weekend at the Northamptonshire track came as the season heads into the closing stages.
Andrew and the Pirtek Racing Honda Civic were in the heat of the battle all weekend and posted fifth fastest time in qualifying on Saturday. “P5 in qualifying could have been a bit more,” he said. “There was a bit of traffic and I think it could have been P2.”
The opening race on Sunday brought sixth place, but Andrew felt there was better to come. “We didn’t quite have the car how we needed it to be,” he said. “We did a race run in the second free practice session and the car felt good. Maybe we should have changed it a little as the ambient temperature came up.”
For the second race, Andrew elected to use the soft tyres and had mighty pace as he raced to fourth place. Unfortunately, his result was badly affected by a first lap knock. “I think we should have finished second but we got hit on the first lap and dropped four places to tenth. With the soft tyres, I wanted to go quite easy on them in the early laps to make sure I had something left at the end. But because of the incident I had to go for it from the start and got through to fourth. Then I just didn’t have enough front right tyre left to get to Tordoff. It was frustrating because if we’d finished the first lap in fifth or sixth, we’d have got second.”
Having used his soft tyre option in race two, the 25-year-old knew he would face a tough third and final race of the day. “I started third and just about everyone else was on the soft tyres. I thought we’d do well to finish in the top six. I thought it would be hard work, and it was,” he said later. “It was probably one of my better drives: it was such a defensive drive. When you see Colin Turkington behind you on lap one and he’s on the soft tyres, you know it is going to be tough. I made the decision to go defensive but I thought I was just putting off the inevitable and it felt like a very long race. It was good to be back on the podium and everyone in the team did a really good job.”
