Andrew Jordan and the Pirtek Racing outfit head into the seven week summer break on the back of a triple top four finish at Croft, including a race three podium finish.
The results mean that Jordan is joint fourth in the outright Championship with Rob Collard while holding a slender lead in the Independent drivers’ standings.
Jordan qualified second for the first race of the weekend, finishing a tenth away from Pole Position and having split the works Honda’s of Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden. After qualifying, the team discovered an issue with the car.
“After qualifying we found a problem with the diff, and on full throttle the car was really hard work,” said Andrew. “But even with that we were only a tenth off pole, so the potential was there for pole.”
The opening race of the weekend saw Jordan slot into second, once again was splitting the two Hondas of Shedden and Neal. Jordan would start to fall back down the order after contact from Neal at the hairpin.
“Matt had a bit of a lunge at the hairpin and hit me quite hard, which bent the tracking and closed the exhaust down so I had no straight-line speed,” added Jordan, who salvaged fourth overall and second in the Independents’.
Race two of the weekend saw Jordan secure another fourth place finish, having fallen back to sixth at the start due to a couple of Rear Wheel Drive cars getting ahead of him. He fought his way back up to third and set about chasing down the works cars before dropping back to fourth by the finish.
“A couple of the rear-wheel drive cars got me off the start, but I got back up to third and went after the Hondas. The car felt really, really good but then it dropped off massively and I think it was a problem with the diff again,” continued Jordan, who secured another second place in the Independents.
The final race before the summer break saw Jordan line up in seventh on the reverse grid. Saving survived the fraught action and the double Safety car period, Jordan was able to bring home the Pirtek Racing Civic third overall and second in the Independents.
“The third race was just manic: probably one of the most fraught races I’ve ever been in,” concluded Jordan. “There was a lot going on, but I managed to keep my nose clean and went from seventh to third. It was a good hard race and it was good to come away with at least one podium.”
Snetterton in Norfolk is the venue for the sixth round of the season, which will take place in seven weeks time over the 11/12 August.