Andrew Jordan – “Unspectacular but a healthy dose of points!”

The Motorbase Ford Focus felt the best it’s felt all year once we got going. I was quickest in the first free practice session for a while, before dropping to second. The hard work we’d put in since Oulton Park paid off; we’d made big changes to the geometry of the car, particularly with the rear end.

The second practice session was good, too. I felt really comfortable with the car and was third quickest, despite a trip through the gravel on my quickest lap!

Come qualifying, I got a reminder of how competitive this championship is and how you have to everything fully sorted to make the most of it. In my first run I spun at the first corner on new rubber so that was no good. In the second, we swapped the tyres around a bit and, bearing in mind you only get one decent run because of the tyre drop-off, had to go for it. I was languishing down in 16th but managed to nail a lap good enough for eighth – only 0.5s off the pole time.

I was pretty pleased with where we were as we headed into the first of the three races. And that confidence translated into a decent result, although only just. The tyres had started to go off so I was trying to manage those as I got a whiff of gearbox oil. Not ideal!

Turns out that something had broken a sensor on the gearbox, which caused it to leak onto the front tyres. I only just got to the finish – another lap and that would’ve been that.

The Motorbase boys did a staggering job between races. It was a full-on, engine-out job. In fact, we only got out for race two because it was delayed by 10 minutes. It was that close.

The trouble was, all the attention had gone on the gearbox issues so we didn’t get any set-up tweaks done. It was a case of ‘we’re lucky just to be here so anything is a bonus’. I dropped down to ninth, but still scooped seven points. They could be crucial come the year’s end.

For race three, I was again hoping for some reversed-grid-draw luck but didn’t get any. It was wet and the car felt good in those conditions. I like the wet, too – must be something to do with my rallycross upbringing. Starting from ninth, I settled down well and picked off a few cars. I then got two more on the last lap to seal fifth and another chunk of points.

Moving up from sixth to fourth was a great result. It validates the thinking that you have to score as often as you can in this championship. I’m 22 points off Matt Neal in third, which is a fair chunk, but anything can happen in the BTCC and usually does!

We’ve got a Dunlop tyre test at Snetterton in the week after the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the BTCC shootout. I’m looking forward to getting some more pace out of the Focus before we race at Snett at the end of July.