JORDAN: IT’S ALL-OUT ATTACK FROM NOW ON
British Touring Cars intra-team battle hots up after Thruxton
British Touring Car Championship chaser Andrew Jordan says he is prepared for one of his toughest career fights as he aims to unseat reigning champion and team-mate Colin Turkington at the head of this year’s battle.
The WSR BMW 330i M Sport driver, who missed three rounds due to injury early in the campaign, is also battling to save his BTCC career after the loss of a major sponsor.
The 2013 title winner says it will be gloves off for the remaining nine rounds of the 2019 competition. Turkington has a 30-point advantage with 201 still on offer.
“I might not even be on the grid next year, so I really have nothing to lose,” said Jordan. “I don’t need to make friends. I am not saying I would fight dirty and I respect BMW and the people there, so I would not take him out, but I will race Colin [Turkington] as hard as I will race anyone else now.”
British Touring Car Championship title-chaser Andrew Jordan has pledged to go toe-to-toe with teammate Colin Turkington over the remaining nine rounds of this year’s contest.
Both drivers race WSR BMW 330i M Sports and have taken five victories apiece over the 21 rounds held so far.
However, a large accident at the second event of the year at Donington Park ruled Jordan out of those three races. While he failed to score in that April meeting, reigning title-holder Turkington claimed his first win of the year and opened a gap at the top of the table.
Jordan has been clawing back ground ever since. Despite outscoring Turkington at Thruxton last weekend in a lacklustre meeting for both machines, there is still a 30-point gap between the two WSR cars.
There are 201 points available over the remaining nine races, with the next rounds of the contest taking place at Knockhill in Scotland on September 14-15.
Jordan faces an uncertain future in the category as long-time backer Pirtek is withdrawing from its sponsorship commitments at the end of the current campaign.
Jordan said: “The advantage is Colin’s to drop now. If he keeps on doing what he is doing, he will win it, whereas I have simply got nothing to lose. If it is second or third that I finish in the title chase, I don’t really give a sh*t.
It is all about winning for me.
I am enjoying the fight, and
I am up for the challenge.”
Fine sign off
Thirty-year-old Jordan says he is working hard to carve out a future in the championship he has raced in since 2008 and that means the pressure is off him in the battle for this year’s competition.
After the accident at Donington Park in April, Jordan bounced back with four wins in six races at Thruxton in May and Croft in June. That added to his openingmeeting win at Brands Hatch, but consistent scoring by the sister machine of Turkington means Jordan says it is hard to make progress.
He outscored Turkington on the second visit to Thruxton last weekend, but only clawed back six points as both of the rearwheel-drive cars struggled at the Hampshire track.
Aside from the five wins across the 2019 campaign, Turkington has taken two other rostrum finishes, while Jordan has three more.
“At the rate I am closing right now, it is not going to be enough,” said Jordan. “Colin needs to have some back luck for me to get back into the hunt. I don’t want him to have a shocker for the team, but from a selfish point of view, I really need him to trip up soon.
“You can’t get away from the fact that I am quite a chunk behind now. Even if I had just have had an average weekend at Donington back in April, I would have been looking at 30 points gained which would put me right in the picture.
“I know after that we went into some events [without success ballast] and we won some races as a result, but trying to make up that deficit from someone like Colin, when we are so closely matched in the same car, is so hard.”
Jordan said that even though he might be forced to take a sabbatical in 2020, it hadn’t motivated him further in the quest for a second crown.
“There are team orders in as much as we aren’t going to take each other off, and that is it,” explained Jordan. “I am going to fight to the death of this championship and there is a good chance that I might not even be here next year, so I really have nothing to lose. I don’t need to make friends. I am not saying I would fight dirty and I respect BMW and the people there, so I would not take Colin out, but it needs to be balls to the wall for me. But I will race him as hard as I will race anyone else now.”
The British Touring Car Championship hasn’t been settled before its final meeting since 1997 when Swiss Alain Menu claimed the crown for Renault.
“I would love the gap to be 10 or 15 points going into [the finale] at Brands Hatch [on October 12-13], because then I would be in striking distance,” said Jordan.
Champion’s threats
Turkington, who is chasing a fourth crown in the BTCC and his first back-to-back title triumph, said that he was looking at all of his rivals rather than just the intra-team battle with Jordan.
The BMWS have had a centre-ofgravity alteration under tweaked regulations which came into force at the sixth meeting of the year at Snetterton, and that has been combined with two turbo boost level decreases over the course of the 21 races so far.
“All the Hondas have been fast,” said Turkington after Civic Type R drivers Sam Tordoff, Josh Cook and Dan Cammish claimed triumphs at Thruxton last weekend. “There are the [olderspec] FK2S or the [newer-spec] FK8S – FK quick, I am going to call the Hondas. There are so many of them. It is a big part of the field and the grid is really condensed and we don’t have any advantage. We feel now like we are on the back foot so from now on it is going to be a struggle.”
The Northern Irishman can afford to play the percentages with the buffer he has at the head of the table, but will not adopt that attitude despite the advantage he currently enjoys.
“When you get down to the last three events, then you start to home in on who is the direct opposition is. That said, I still like to just do my own thing,” said Turkington. “I suppose it maybe is going to be more tense because Andrew has got the same opportunity as me in terms of speed of car, we know what each other is doing, it is hard to shake somebody like that off because, over the course of the season, we have the same strengths and weaknesses. Like the weekend we have just had at Thruxton, it is not one of us on the back foot, it has been both of us. So I think it is going to be neck and neck to the end.”