Jordan tops first free practice
Mike Jordan has set the pace in the first official free practice session of the new 2007 season, held on a damp but rapidly drying Brands Hatch circuit this morning. Jordan, in his Eurotech with John Guest-Speedfit Honda Integra, set a time of 49.743s around Brands’s short Indy circuit.
On a crowded track that saw all 26 entered cars run, Jordan was just 0.009s ahead of second-fastest Tom Chilton in Vauxhall’s new Vectra, himself just 0.030s clear of team-mate Fabrizio Giovanardi.
It wasn’t all smooth running for Jordan, though, as he explained: “I’m actually using one of Matt Neal’s seats from last year and he’s obviously a bit slimmer than me – I bashed the car over the kerbing at Paddock Hill Bend and cricked my back!”
In a session that saw the top 16 covered by less than a second, SEAT’s Jason Plato, Colin Turkington (Team RAC BMW) and the rapid Adam Jones (Team Air Cool SEAT Toledo) completed the top six.
Many eyes were on reigning champion squad Team Halfords’ new Honda Civics that have arrived at Brands Hatch desperately short on track time. Nevertheless, both cars ran faultlessly and defending drivers’ champion Matt Neal was able to set the eighth-fastest time. Team-mate Gordon Shedden, whose car only ran for the first time on Friday in a shakedown session, was 14th.
Team manager Oli Collins said: “It’s been a hard week and even our race truck suffered a blown tyre on the way here. But I saw two magpies this morning so hopefully that’s a sign all our bad luck is over.”
Rick Kerry’s Team AFM Racing BMW 120D, the BTCC’s first diesel-powered car, was also a centre of attention as it posted the 26th fastest time, just over four seconds from Jordan’s pace.
Drivers to suffer problems included Simon Blanckley (Sibsport Integra) and Dave Pinkney (A-Tech Alfa Romeo 156) whose cars slithered off the track at the Druids and Clearways corners repsectively – combined, these incidents caused the session to be halted 30 seconds before its scheduled end.
The A-Tech team has also worked long hours to ready its pair of 156s, including three stints through the night mid-week. Pinkney’s car, 16th fastest in first practice, was only finished off at 3am this morning.
