Andrew Jordan: “We’re about where we expected to be”

Reigning champion Andrew Jordan said he qualified around where he expected to, with the crown of best-placed Honda only good enough for 16th on the grid.

Jordan and his stable-mates in the factory team were towards the bottom of the speed traps for most of the day, on a track where they have traditionally struggled.

And the 25-year-old said there wasn’t an awful lot of time left in the car, after winding up 0.525 seconds off the pole time set by Triple Eight’s Jason Plato.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Jordan said: “We haven’t got a handle on the car today as much as normal, and we’ve been struggling with oversteer. We had that through free practice one and two, so we threw quite a lot at it for qualifying.

“It was still a bit oversteery in some areas, and it’s gone a bit too far the other way in others.

“Realistically, if we came here and did a day’s testing we might find one or two tenths. It’s about as much as we can hope for to be the top in the trio. I don’t want to be down in 16th, obviously, but I expected that to be about where we were.”

Asked if straight line speed was the biggest issue, Jordan added: “Yes. I think so – but I’m not going to moan about it, because this is our worst track. You’ve just got to do the best you can, and get the most out of it.

“Last year we qualified 11th, but there’s more people now who can get inbetween you. In the first race [last year] we got through to sixth, so you can race forward.

“It will be hard, and we need to do some work to improve it. We’re struggling a bit through Copse at the minute, and you need to be good through there.”