Andrew Jordan believes the first ever running of the harder compound of Dunlop tyre could prove to be a key plot point as the British Touring Car Championship heads to Rockingham this weekend for the first of three remaining meetings this season.
Jordan, who currently heads up the Independents standings, last won at the 1.94 mile circuit during his title-winning season of 2013, but comes into the weekend keen to add to that victory tally and maintain his advantage over Motorbase Performance team-mate, Mat Jackson.
The Pirtek-backed driver also stands an outside chance of becoming a double series winner, 60 points adrift of current leader Sam Tordoff with just shy of 200 markers left to race for across the nine remaining races this campaign.
Three solid points finishes last time out at Knockhill allowed Jordan to extend his Independents advantage, but contact at close quarters with some of his rivals hampered his progress to an extent in Scotland.
He is hopeful that a repeat won’t befall him at Rockingham, and he can begin to showcase the car’s performance gains with some better results.
“We’ve shown in recent meetings that we have a quick car, but for various reasons we haven’t been able to really show that speed in the end results,” commented Jordan.
“Hopefully Rockingham will be the weekend where I’ll have that little bit of luck that seems to have deserted me over the past few weekends, and I’ll be able to challenge towards the front of the field.
“Like Knockhill, Rockingham is a circuit where the Focus has been strong in the past and I have a few wins there myself, so there is no reason why I can’t push for a second win of the year to strengthen my lead in the Independents’ Championship, which is the major focus for me in the three rounds left to run.
“The big question this weekend will be how the tyres perform as we haven’t used the ‘Hard’ tyre at Rockingham before. It could make things interesting on race day as the circuit is known for being hard on the soft tyres we have used in the past and it adds something new to the mix when we are working on the best set-up for race day.”