Andrew Jordan: BTCC 2018, Croft – "This weekend wasn’t what it should have been"

That being said, front-wheel-drive cars have been good pretty much everywhere this year, even where you wouldn’t expect them to be, so we knew we had to work even harder at Croft. I went out in FP1 on really old tyres, and the car felt good, setting the eighth fastest time and leaving us fairly confident right from the start.

We made the call to not run any new tyres in FP2 so we could have three brand new sets for qualifying. As Croft is so hard on tyres, we knew having the third set for qualifying would be good to have up our sleeves. Despite running on old tyres we were still tenth at the end of FP2 and were feeling pretty comfortable with the car.

The one downside of not running any new tyres in practice meant that it was a bit of a guessing game when it came to the setup for qualifying. I knew from past experiences what the tyres were likely to do, but we still had no data from this weekend to go on.

My first run was good, posting the seventh fastest time, but we could only make a couple of small setup changes before the second run due to the lack of time. During the second run I was blocked by a couple of other cars, the team decided to call me in during the lap as I wasn’t going to improve, fit the third set of tyres and try for a third and final time.

The call was the right one as I put in a clean lap, six tenths faster than I’d been earlier in the session and third behind the resurging Team BMR Subarus of Ash Sutton and Jason Plato. The car was never easy with a little bit of oversteer throughout the session, but then it never is easy in qualifying.

We made a couple of changes overnight and within the first two laps of the first race I could tell something wasn’t quite right. I managed to jump Jason off the start, but very quickly there was no rear end grip. The car was oversteering all over the place. I was losing the rear on entry, and then when I tried going into corners slower than usual just suffered from oversteer either mid-corner or on exit.

I was starting to lose ground Ash at the front, and then Jason got back past. I then had my mirrors full with the Toyota Avensis of Tom Ingram and got a little wide into Clervaux and went around, dropping to tenth, which is where we finished. It could have been much worse and I have no idea how I got down the gears so quickly, but it really rescued what could have been a much worse situation. I was just really frustrated with how difficult the car was to drive, what should have been an easy podium felt like it was taken away by having to fight with one hand tied behind my back.

Race two was a much calmer affair, which certainly helped as I was able to manage the tyres and bring the car home. We got the jump off the line again, promoting us a couple of positions up the order. After a good, steady race we crossed the line in fifth, and with the top 9 being reversed for the race three grid, meant we could start from 5^th again in race three.

I got another really good start when the lights went out for race three, but I didn’t want to go around the outside of some of the drivers we were starting around, so was stuck in behind Honda’s Matt Neal. We were then locked in a great fight with Ash, who was full of confidence having won two races earlier in the day. Eventually Ash got through, and in doing so allowed [team-mate] Colin [Turkington] through. The car felt the best it did all day, with the hard tyres offering the most traction of the three races. One of the disadvantages of the championship being so close and competitive now means that it is incredibly difficult to find a way through at times as everyone is running similar pace across the lap. We gained a position again when Ash and Matt had a coming together, dropping Ash behind us and we were back to square one. A rather robust move from last year’s champion put him through at the hairpin, but our positions were reversed post-race by the driving standards advisors, meaning we ended the weekend with a sixth placed result.

To come away with three top tens is not a bad result, especially as the car we had on Sunday was in now way a race-winning or even podium-challenging car. There’s plenty of positives to take, though. The car has shown it has the pace over one lap, and this was the second event where I have qualified as the top BMW – when you take into account weight correction, there’s pretty much nothing between myself and Colin.

The next round of the BTCC takes place at Snetterton, with the double points race to celebrate 60 years of the championship and getting a good result in that will be key for the championship. We just need to keep finishing, but podiums and wins are a must at this stage of the season.

Before that, though, we have the most important event of the year – the BTCC Shootout at the Festival of Speed. I’m really looking forward to it, it’s going to be a good, fun weekend and while we’ll be going head-to-head with our rivals in the championship, it’s going to be a bit of light-hearted fun. I need to retain my Goodwood crown, but with the likes of Matt Neal, Tom Ingram and Josh Cook snapping at my heels, it won’t be easy!