More points for Jordan / British Touring Cars

Andrew Jordan maintained his position at the head of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship title race at Donington Park with a third, a fourth and a fifth across three action-packed races in challenging conditions.

In front of a huge Easter Sunday crowd at the East Midlands track, the BTCC action was fast and furious and with two wet races followed by a dry third race it was a tough day for the teams and drivers. Once again, the Pirtek Racing squad delivered a great performance despite the Honda Civic carrying the maximum 45kg of success ballast.

CBT-backed Andrew knew that running with 45kg of ballast was always going to make it a tough weekend at his home track. “Carrying the weight into the weekend is certainly hurting a lot more than last year,” he said. “We went three-tenths of a second quicker than we did last year in qualifying with the weight on and we were seventh on the grid. There are now more people to get in amongst it at the front of the grid and with 45kg you are going to be at the bottom end of the top 10. Then you are fighting back through the weekend.”

However, a very wet and slippery track for the opening race suited Andrew’s renowned prowess in such conditions and he drove a fine race to work through to third place. “P3 in race one was a massive surprise but the conditions suited me. The car felt good and I was just biding my time and looking after the tyres.

“For race two I probably over-reacted a little because it was very wet on the out lap and I think I softened the car down too much. I couldn’t attack as much as I wanted and I made a mistake at the Old Hairpin when Shedden got past me.” Nevertheless, fourth place was another fine result.

Starting third on the grid for the final race on a now dry track, Andrew appeared to get a tap from behind into the first corner which sent the car sideways and he dropped right back to 12th place. Then came a stirring recovery drive to fifth place, but Andrew said it could have been more.

“I might have had a tap at the first corner as it just suddenly went,” he said. “I made some really good moves and it puts us in the joint lead in the championship. We had the pace to win the last race. But we had a third, a fourth and a fifth and that’s the sort of results you need in this championship!”