Podium pace but an ultimately unrewarded weekend marked the start of the season for Pirtek Racing’s Andrew Jordan in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch (4/5 April). A best result of fifth place came in the second race during his debut race weekend in the works MG6 GT run by Triple Eight Racing.
On Saturday Andrew qualified tenth fastest, just a quarter of a second away from pole position on an incredibly competitive grid. However, he was frustrated to start down the grid for the opening race on Sunday morning. “We had some set-up issues and the car wasn’t where we wanted it to be in qualifying,” said Andrew. “We also had a turbo failure in free practice and that cost us some running.”
Despite still feeling that the car wasn’t quite right, in race one Andrew finished seventh and then moved up further in race two as he battled through to take fifth place. “In the first two races I was suffering with understeer so we made some big changes for the third race and that meant we could really race forward. It should have been a podium finish.”
Andrew started sixth on the grid for race three and quickly worked through to run in fourth, right on the tail of the leading trio. Then, he saw a gap going into Clearways and dived up inside the Audi of Rob Austin. As Austin tried to close the door the cars touched and Andrew’s MG instantly picked up a front puncture. That sent him into the pits for a wheel change and his result was lost. He rejoined to finish down in 19th place.
“The results from the weekend show that it is all about being consistent and we need to play the long game in the championship,” he concluded. Although he now lies just outside the early championship top 10, the fact that no single driver dominated the races means that the championship points are still very close after only three of the weekend’s 30 races.
Pirtek is Europe’s number one provider of hydraulic solutions and mobile hose replacement, with over 170 centres supported by over 700 mobile service workshops throughout Europe. Offering solutions to a number of business sectors, including the automotive industry.
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