Eurotech Racing had a consistent weekend at Donington, with drivers Andrew Jordan and Jeff Smith taking five top six finishes between them. These results saw Eurotech maintain their position at the top of the independent team’s championship and Jordan retain the lead of the independent driver’s championship.
Jordan qualified in fourth for race one during Saturday’s rain interrupted qualifying session. It was a position he fell back from in the race after being caught out by cold tyres. In spite of this Jordan was happy with his recovery: “I had a big moment at Redgate and lost the back massively so we dropped back. We had good race pace and made good moves to finish sixth so that was quite good. We said if that was a bad race and we finished sixth it was pretty good.”
The Eurotech Racing driver was frustrated with how his second race turned out after contact with Dave Newsham at McLeans saw him lose ground while he was trying to work his way up into a podium position: “In race two I made a good start. I got [Tom] Onslow-Cole for fourth and got hit in the rear and fired through the gravel. It’s frustrating but we got a fifth. Consistent but not great results but that’s the way it is.”
The third race saw Jordan line up second on the grid behind his team mate Jeff Smith after the top six finishes were reversed for the race. In a repeat of what happened in race one, he had another slide at Redgate: “It went pretty quickly: it might just have been the cold tyres or I got a little nudge.” However it was the chaos at Old Hairpin caused when Rob Collard rejoined the field after an off a few laps later that hurt Jordan’s race: “There were four or five cars to the right that had slowed as the BMW came back on. I went left and I thought there was probably a bigger gap than there was.” He made contact with fellow NGTC Honda Civic runner Matt Neal, causing both to spin. Jordan was able to rejoin and fight back to finish sixth.
Jeff Smith qualified in ninth for race one, finishing the safety car free race in 13th. He was able to fight his way well into the top ten in the second race to finish sixth. This put him on pole for the third race of the day, with the top six positions reversed. While Smith made a poor start to the race in his NGTC Civic he was able to recover to finish ahead of his team mate in fifth.
After Donington Eurotech Racing lead the independent team’s championship with 102 points, giving them a ten point margin over Motorbase Performance. Andrew Jordan leads the independent drivers championship with an 18 point margin over Rob Collard, with Jeff Smith in fourth.
