Arriving at the Fife circuit, the team knew that they faced a damage limitation weekend after the turbo boost levels were announced, with the NGTC Honda’s running the least amount of boost.
Heading into the weekend, Andrew Jordan had qualified inside the top four at every event in 2012 but he admitted that he would have done well to break into the top six.
“After the free practice sessions on Saturday morning we said we’d do well to qualify in the top six, which is unusual for us,” said Andrew. “We’d been top four at every meeting until Knockhill. The car felt pretty good, but we were down 7mph on the straights.”
He finished eleventh fastest after the rain fell and he had an off track excursion.
“When it rained I thought we’d be in good shape, but we really struggled,” he continued. “We were two-tenths off the other Hondas and they were down the order. Then I went off at Duffus Dip when trying too hard.”
The first race saw Jordan recover to ninth position and he moved up to seventh in the second race of the weekend.
“We got a ninth place in the first race,” he said. “I just couldn’t really go forward because of the lack of straight-line speed. In the second race we were seventh. We knew that Knockhill would be a case of damage limitation against Rob Collard points-wise in the Independents’ Trophy,” added the #77 Pirtek Racing driver.
With the top 10 drivers being reversed for the final race of the weekend, this left Jordan fourth on the grid and ahead of his main Independents’ rival, Rob Collard.
Jordan secured a fourth place finish to conclude the weekend and his results mean that he heads to Rockingham over the 22/23 September with a 34 Point advantage over Collard, while lying fourth overall in the overall drivers’ Championship.
“In the third race we took some points back from Collard, so that was good: it was what we really needed. I just got under Matt Neal off the last corner and crossed the line four-hundredths of a second behind him in fourth,” added Jordan.
The final race of the weekend saw the sister Pirtek Racing Civic of Jeff Smith finish second and secure his maiden podium finish, despite the pressure from triple Champion Matt Neal.
“Jeff did a great job to get his first podium,” concluded Jordan.