Andrew Jordan is hoping for a trouble-free race day in the British Touring Car Championship at Rockingham, after the BMW Pirtek Racing driver put his car in 11th on the grid for race one.
Jordan ended up as the best-placed BMW driver on the sixth row of the grid, immediately ahead of team-mate and title rival Colin Turkington.
Having also taken victory at the circuit in last year’s reverse grid encounter, having qualified even worse, Jordan is not disappointed about having slipped out of the top ten in the latter stages of qualifying.
“Last year I qualified 18th here and came away with a win in race three,” said Jordan. “We’ve definitely benefited this year from trying to take each weekend as a whole, rather than looking at each session in isolation.
“Thinking long-game, 11th isn’t a bad place to be in when you look at how close the times are and where the cars around us in the championship are starting.”
With consistency being key in 2018 – no driver in the top five in the standings has won more than two races – Jordan is baking on staying out of trouble in Sundays races, which are likely to be wet.
“The BMW feels good, so the aim is just to keep my nose clean, rack up the points and see where that puts us at the end of the weekend.”
WSR Team Principal Dick Bennetts was positive about Jordan’s performance, pointing to the fact that he is carrying 39 kg of success ballast for being joint fifth in the championship.
“Andrew’s done a good job to be 11th with the ballast he’s carrying,” added Bennetts. “We tried some pretty radical things with the set-up in practice to see if we could find some extra speed, but he’s comfortable with the car and it does seem that the only limitation on his lap times is the weight.
“Last year he was three rows further back and won the last race, so from higher up, we’re sure he can help his title challenge with some strong results tomorrow.”