Pirtek buoyed by pre-season showing

Sun 21st March 2010 Pirtek Racing is one of two teams running the BTCC’s Next Generation engine during the 2010 season, and if pre-season is anything to go by, then a strong campaign lies ahead.

By Matt Salisbury

Having lost his drive with VX Racing following Vauxhall’s decision to quit the British Touring Car Championship at the end of 2009, Andrew Jordan returns to the family fold this season with Eurotech taking over the running of his Vectra under the Pirtek Racing banner.

Along with BTCC veteran Dave Pinkney, Jordan will run with the new NGTC engine fitted to his car and has spent recent weeks wracking up the miles with the turbo-charged motor.

The most recent of those tests came this week at Oulton Park with two days of running at the picturesque Cheshire venue, where he discussed how things are shaping up for the year ahead…

Q:
Andrew, how’s it been going at Oulton?

Andrew Jordan:
Really well. We’ve made some big progress during the two days at Oulton Park and some big steps forward with the car. Reliability is coming to us as well so everything is pointing towards a good season for us, although we won’t know where we are until the first qualifying session is over. At the minute, we are looking strong.

Q:
You’ve had the chance to do quite a bit of testing so far. How have the early stages of running with the new engine gone?

Andrew Jordan:
To be fair, this is the first test where we have really started to work on the chassis. The other tests have been working with the engine and the engine people on mapping and things like that, and we said to them that we really needed to start doing some stuff on the chassis.

Coming here, they have pretty much left the engine alone and we have been doing the chassis work and trying some different fundamental things. It’s really good because some of them have been a categorical no and others have definitely worked and I like it when it’s like that – rather than when you come back into the pits and you aren’t sure. When you can see that there is a definite gain or disadvantage, then you know straight away whether to use those changes or not. We are really pleased with everything and our pace seems pretty good so we are excited about it.

Q:
Pace is good, so early impressions of the engine must also be good…

Andrew Jordan:
It’s a totally different style of driving with it being a turbo and there is a little bit of lag, but not a huge amount and not as much as I thought there was going to be. Left foot braking – which I do anyway – is proving to be an advantage in this car as you can get the turbo spinning up a bit earlier, and through the faster stuff, as it comes on lag, it creates a little bit of understeer so you can use the left foot braking to keep the nose tucked in and then use the engines torque – which seems really strong out of slow corners.

Q:
Having driven the car with the S2000 engine, what do you feel are the advantages – or possible disadvantages – of using this engine instead?

Andrew Jordan:
When we first opted to go down this route, we knew the engine was about 20-25 kilos heavier over the front axle and a trait of the Vauxhall last year was that it tended to overwork its front tyres little bit. We were a little bit worried about that, but Dunlop have brought in a new compound of tyre and it seems to be more durable over a race run; our race runs have been pretty good and the drop hasn’t been massive at all. That has taken out the only disadvantage we could see of going down this route and at the minute, everything is looking positive.

Last season, our one lap pace was never a real issue but the race runs were our downfall so we have concentrated on race runs and are pleased with how it has gone. The torque is good as I said and I am really, really pleased with it.

Q:
Your car was ready to run early and you’ve arguably done more running than anyone else prior to the new season. Will that be an advantage?

Andrew Jordan:
I think it helps, but to be fair, RML are testing the Cruze here for the first time on Dunlop tyres but they have run that car in the WTCC and will have data from the Lacetti to get that car to work and they will be right there. It’s the same with Matt Neal - he seems to be going well with the Civic.

You can say we have done a fair bit of testing but all the other guys are top drivers and top teams and they will come out at the first race and be on it. It is good to start the season with testing behind you as you have things you can try and see if the car works or not. Like I said, this was the first real test where we could try things on the chassis that we have wanted to try for a while but haven’t been able to because we were doing engine work. We are pleased with some of the changes we have made, some have worked and some haven’t, but it is good to have the car back at our place and do things how we want to do them. Dad is enjoying it as well!

Q:
In January you didn’t want to make predictions. Any chance you’ve changed your tune and might want to make some now?

Andrew Jordan:
I always try not to make too many predictions but I think we’ll be one of the front-runners – definitely. I think there will be a good few of the quick guys – as there always are – who are close on the times but I think we’ll be right up there. I’m not looking at the championship but I want to try and win some races and get a few poles and see where it goes.

Like I said, I’m really pleased with the new Dunlop tyre as the race pace wasn’t always great last year and I knew it was something we needed to address, but we have been helped out a bit there with the new tyre which is working fantastically on our car. I think the new tyre will make the action closer towards the end of the race because I don’t think it will be like it was last year, where the BMW tended to come on strong towards the end as the front-wheel drive cars hurt their tyres.

These new tyres will help the front-wheel drive cars over a long distance and we’ll see some close racing.