A frustrated Andrew Jordan was left wondering what could have been after a disappointing qualifying hampered his second meeting of the new Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season at Donington Park, and he could only recover to score three points finishes.
The Ford Focus ST driver was in good form at the series opener at Brands Hatch a fortnight prior [2nd-3rd April], scoring a brace of fourth place finishes on an unpredictable opening weekend. However, failing the ride height checks in qualifying on two occasions last weekend at Donington ensured a repeat performance would be difficult at best.
He went on to secure finishes of 14th, 12th and 10th around the 1.9 mile National layout, and admitted he had been hoping for a better recovery after the dust had settled on the last of three action-packed contests.
“What happened in qualifying really hurt our weekend and we weren’t able to fight back quite as we hoped to,” he commented.
“We were chasing the handling of the car a bit in the first two races but then we made some radical set-up changes for race three and it was transformed.
He also admitted it was difficult in prolonging the life of his softer compound Dunlop tyres during the first race of the day, conceding that he and the Motorbase team did the best they could given the situation.
“In the early stages of the race, the car felt so much better but I knew at some point that the performance of the soft tyre was going to drop away and that was exactly what happened. I think we managed it the best that we could and we’ve come away from the weekend with three points finishes, although we obviously wanted more.
He conceded he felt the weekend overall was a missed opportunity for him, but resolved to bounce back when the series reconvenes at Thruxton in three weeks time.
“Given the pace that is in the car, this weekend is a bit of a missed opportunity but at the same time, it means we go to Thruxton in three weeks without any ballast and I’m going to come out fighting for three strong results.”