Andrew Jordan: “A tricky end to the year, but it’s good to land another indy title!”

I came into the weekend needing a fair bit of luck to stand any chance of winning the title from 31 points back, and, true to form, we didn’t get much.

The second free-practice session in the wet went pretty well. I was seventh quickest despite trying a few set-up changes on the Focus that didn’t really work. We knew there was more to come, in other words.

I was sitting in a provisional sixth, from where you can bag a ton of points in race one, in the early part of qualifying. And then, combined with it spitting with rain, the red flag came out. And that was that. The times were slower initially obviously, so we sat in the pits waiting and waiting. It dried very quickly and people were soon back on the pace. We had to make a bolt for it and get back out, but I only had time for two flying laps. Result: P13. My team-mate Mat [Jackson] was stuck down in 19^th so it was a bit of a shocker for the team.

There’s always a danger of something going wrong when you’re mired mid-pack and, sure enough, as we charged up to the Druids hairpin on lap two there was a scattering of cars in all sorts of places. I went round the outside only to find Hunter Abbott’s spun Chevrolet broadside in my path. I had no time to react and, although the speed was fairly low, my car came to a very sudden stop as I clouted the Cruze. End of race, and a compromised grid position for race two. The impact gave me a bit of a bashing in the crotch-strap department, too, if you know what I mean!

The Motorbase boys did a cracking job to get the car ready for the second race. I was sure the subframe and/or engine would be damaged, but all was well and I was back out a few hours later – albeit at the back of the grid.

Race two was good fun, to be honest, and I was chuffed to make it up to 13^th from 31^st on the soft tyre. At this point, though, the title was gone; I had to concentrate on nailing the Independents’ title, that I was locked in battle with Mat for.

I got that job done, for the third time, thanks to 11^th in the final race, but it wasn’t what we set out to do, of course – the overall title was the goal, and always will be. Still, it was good to end the year clutching a trophy on the podium.

The BTCC is a fantastic series – I can’t wait to get going again in 2017. It’ll be my 10th season in it and I’ll be giving it full beans to try to land that second title…

Photography courtesy of btcc.net.