Jordan: “I’m determined to get my first win”

Andrew Jordan is confident that his new turbo Vectra will be the car to power him to his maiden BTCC win. Speaking to TouringCarTimes after the unveiling of his new livery at the Autosport show, Jordan said he and the Pirtek Racing team were determined to break their BTCC duck in 2010, with the Vauxhall. “After last year I said we’ve got to get some wins next year, so we wouldn’t have picked it if we didn’t think it possible”.

The 20-year-old was also impressed with the way the Pirtek livery had turned out, saying:

“I’m very chuffed with it, it looks fast, so if it goes as well as it looks then we’re in for good things. We’ve already has some good feedback on the livery from people here at the show, so I’m hugely excited.

“I think it will go very well. The bad point about last year was the Vauxhall engine, which struggled massively at times, but it’s a great handling car, a bit heavy on it’s front tyres at times. It will take a little bit of time, but we’re willing to work to get it going as best as we possibly can.”

Although currently just one of two drivers to commit to running the new NGTC engine in 2010, Jordan is sure that the new engine will be a success.

“It’s not going to be slow is it, Alan Gow’s not going to want the new TOCA engine to look slow is he! I’m sure it’ll be up there in the speed traps, and it’s a cracking handling car, so I think it will be a good package once we get it all working well.

“If we are struggling a straight line in the early stages of the season, then with the turbo engine the boost could be adjusted, so it’s not a massive deal to get some more performance out of it.”

Conversely Jordan admitted that if the Vectra were to disappear off over the horizon, then he’d fully expect the boost to be adjusted down.

He is though excited to be at the forefront of the next generation of BTCC cars, admitting the he hoped the familiarity would bring an advantage in future seasons.

“That’s what we thought with them bringing the engine out. We wanted to be one of the first ones, and we are the first ones, and I think that’s good as it gets you a relationship with the organisers and we’ll be helping them with feedback and testing stuff for them. So I’m looking forward to that, I think it’s good to be on something so early.”

The engine though looks to have slightly delayed the on-track debut of the Pirtek Vectra, with Jordan saying that the team would be testing “a bit later than we wanted to” in late February/very early March.

“Triple Eight, who we’re still working with, are getting the engine from Swindon Racing Engines and fitting it to one of their Vectras with all the mounting kits, and then we’ll get it after them” said Jordan.

“We’ve got some different gears being made to deal with the higher torque of the turbo engines, so once we’ve got all that we’ll be out testing as soon as we can.”

“Up until now I’ve been excited about coming to the show, but now I’m at the show I just want to get out testing!”

With father, and former BTCC favourite, Mike admitting during the launch that he was “raring to go”, TouringCarTimes asked Andrew whether he was happy to be back with the family team?

“Yeah it’s really nice. He (Mike) is really chuffed about having a touring car back in our workshop. The guys at work we’ve known for years so we’ve struck up a real good rapport.

“The year in 2008 with Honda I enjoyed massively, I didn’t enjoy last year so much, so I’m very excited to be back.”

Commenting during the launch on his 2009 season with VX Racing, Jordan said that it had been a “big shock” and a “character building” season, but remained confident and determined to recapture his form of two years ago.

“They’re a hugely determined team, and very determined to get me my first win.”

So is the turbo Vectra the machine to give him that win?

“I think so yeah. After last year I said we’ve got to get some wins next year, so we wouldn’t have picked it if we didn’t think it possible”.

During the announcement on the Dunlop stand at the show, when discussing his racing career, Jordan Senior, also admitted that he still harbours an ambition to run his own team at Le Mans in the future, with Andrew as one of the driving team.