I settled into a groove pretty quickly with the BMW 125i M Sport, having never raced a rear-wheel-drive touring car at the switch back Scottish track, which is great fun to get right.
The first free-practice session was largely irrelevant as it was a drying track. We chose to scrub tyres and work on a consistent balance ahead of that all-important qualifying session, rather than go for lap times.
The second session was much more representative – it was the first time I’d driven the BMW in the dry and we nailed a time that was sixth quickest, just two-tenths adrift of P1. The car felt really good as I got to grips with the nuances of the track and how to attack the kerbs so I was confident for qualifying.
And I carried that confidence into the session. The track was drying so quickly that I’d wanted to be one of the first to get onto slicks. The grip levels were building rapidly as it dried, so the timing was crucial.
I’d set the third-quickest time on wets but got onto slicks with just over 10 minutes to go. I was fastest then back to third – it was changing so fast. With three minutes remaining, I went for a crucial last-gasp attempt. I nailed a great sector one, but then got baulked in sector two.
And that was the lap ruined. Relying on my previous best meant I fell to 17th, still only 1.2 seconds adrift. The gains being made by everyone in the final few moments were spectacular.
It was annoying that I had little to show for my pace and it left me with masses of work to do on such a short lap, too. Everything had clicked up to that point and then suddenly my weekend came unravelled.
Still, I’d have to get my head down and see what happened, with one eye on a favourable reversed-grid slot for race three later in the day, if I could make progress in races one and two.
I managed to fight my way up to 13th in the opening encounter, which I felt confident could become a top-10 spot in the second.
I made a great start to race two – ITV4 commentator David Addison described me as “a stabbed rat!” – which was important. Sadly, though, and I’ll take all the rap for it, I hit an early-braking Matt Neal from behind in the run up to the first corner and it all went wrong from there.
After spinning and being hit in the side, there was too much damage to continue. Bang went my reversed-grid plan!
All I could do from 30th, out of 32, for the final race was have some fun. As it turned out it was one of the best races I’ve heard in the past few years. We didn’t change the settings that we’d used in race two and it absolutely flew. It was great to have something to fight with. The momentum was such that I’d catch someone and pass them. Bang! Just like that.
When the safety car came out towards the end, I lost some of that momentum, of course, but to have gone from 30th to 13th, with the second-fastest race lap, was cool. It was proper touring car racing, just like it should be.
An ultimately frustrating weekend, then, but the pace is there. I just need to show it in the final three weekends at Rockingham, Silverstone and Brands Hatch.
Andrew Jordan
BTCC
WSR
West Surrey Racing
