TRIUMPH OVER ADVERSITY, JORDAN WINS AT KNOCKHILL.

TRIUMPH OVER ADVERSITY, JORDAN WINS AT KNOCKHILL.

John Iuga

Andrew Jordan and his Pirtek Racing Honda Civic claimed a fourth win in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill. A Testing weekend saw the Pirtek driver penalised by a 6-place grid penalty after a strong qualifying beating both factory Honda’s to 3rd. Andrew was carrying 36kg of success ballast on the car after the previous round at Snetterton and starting P9 on grid after the penalty the outlook was gloomy.

“I was really pleased to out-qualify Gordon Shedden on his home track, even though I was carrying more ballast.” Andrew stated after an impressive qualifying that saw the rear-wheel drive cars dominate the front row. “Knockhill is all about track position: when you are so close on pace, there are not that many chances to overtake.”

Andrew had a ‘never say die’ attitude. “In race one we made up two places initially and then Rob Collard, who was on the soft tyres, got past me, so I finished eighth. In race two we got up to sixth and had a bit of a dice with Matt Neal. He was strong in some areas and I was strong in some others. It was so close and I couldn’t find a gap.” Andrew had the championship in the back of his mind at all times and opted for a consistent approach at the notorious Knockhill circuit.

 The team new that race three was the best change to collect the silverware, saving their soft tyres and with a little luck in the reverse grid, Andrew was on pole. “Collard was third on the grid and I thought he might jump us off the grid in the rear-wheel drive BMW,” Andrew said. “We were on the soft tyres as we put all our eggs in the one basket for race three. I got a really good start and Collard got ahead of Matt Neal for second. That bottled them up a bit and Matt couldn’t really utilise his soft tyres.”

 “Then there was a safety car, which wiped out my lead of three and a half seconds,” said Andrew. “I knew I had to get a really good re-start and get back into my rhythm. I was able to take the gap back up to four seconds and I had bit left in case Matt got into second and came after me. It could have been a really bad weekend for us, but it turned out really well. It was what we needed from Knockhill and we’ve now got four wins this season.”

With yet another strong weekend, capped by a dominant victory in the third race, Andrew moved even closer to championship leader Matt Neal and is now just six points behind. The championship is heating up as it heads into the final races of the season, with a good showing from Colin Turkington at Knockhill the top four are now split by only 30 points. We look forward to Rockingham for rounds 22, 23 and 24 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.