Andrew Jordan takes Knockhill race three victory

Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan took the final win of the day at Knockhill starting from pole position on the reverse grid in his Honda Civic, and closes to six points from Matt Neal in the standings.

Jordan started from pole position courtesy of a top six grid reversal, and powered away at the start whilst the West Surrey Racing BMW 125i of Rob Collard was able to get ahead of Honda’s Matt Neal for second.

Winner of the first two races, Colin Turkington had jumped ahead of Gordon Shedden’s Honda at the start in his WSR BMW, and then passed Rob Austin’s Audi A4 on lap three at the hairpin, whilst Warren Scott’s Team BMR Restart Volkswagen was spun out with contact from Motorbase Performance’s Aron Smith, and was stranded by the side of the circuit.

A few laps later it was deemed Scott’s car was in a dangerous position and the safety car was called on lap nine which bunched up the field and wiped out Jordan’s two second lead over Collard.

When the race restarted, there were more incidents with the third WSR BMW of Nick Foster and Motorbase’s Mat Jackson both having a moment, and then Aron Smith running into the rear of IP Tech Race Engineering’s Mike Bushell, with Smith clipping Bushell’s Chevrolet again as he went past and was spun into the barrier and developed a puncture. The race officials showed Smith a black and white bad sportsmanship flag for the incident.

On lap 16, reigning champion Gordon Shedden’s Honda ground to a halt with flames bursting from his Civic’s exhaust down the start finish straight, and out of fifth place.

Meanwhile, Matt Neal was able to grab second place back from Collard out of the hairpin on lap 19 and limit the damage in the championship to Jordan, who went on to take the win by almost four seconds.

A late race incident befell the Jack Sears Trophy winner of the first two races, Liam Griffin, who was hid by BTCC newcomer Kieran Gallagher’s Vauxhall Insignia at the hairpin, which allowed an easy win for JWT Performance’s Lea Wood, whose tally increases to ten wins this season.

Jordan’s win closes him to six points of Matt Neal, with Turkington moving past Shedden for third in the drivers’ standings, 17 points adrift with Shedden’s retirement seeing him fall 27 points behind his team-mate.

The next round of the Championship takes place at Rockingham on September 15th.