Jordan takes pole and makes history at Donington

Sat 16th May 2009 Andrew Jordan took a surprise pole position at Donington today and became the youngest ever pole sitter in the history of the British Touring Car Championship. Jordan claimed his history-making pole position after post-session scrutineering resulted in his team mate and original pole sitter Fabrizio Giovanardi being relegated to the back of the grid. Championship leader Matt Neal suffered a disappointing qualifying by his high standards and will start the first race tomorrow in eighth place.

Taking to the track for early morning practice of this weekend’s third round of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship, it was current champion Giovanardi who set the early pace around the 1.96 mile long Donington circuit, despite running with 27kg of ballast courtesy of his third place in the Drivers’ standings. Team mate Neal was also on the pace, as the duo ran first and second in the early stages of the session. As the session came to a close, Giovanardi was fourth quickest, with Neal – carrying maximum ballast - in ninth place, while Jordan was 11th.

Under cloudy skies, the team completed the second practice session, with all three of the VX Racing cars in the top nine. Once again Giovanardi was the quickest VX Racing driver and finished the session fifth, with team mate Neal just behind in sixth. Jordan made improvements from his first session and was ninth quickest.

With high hopes ahead of qualifying, Giovanardi and Neal were among the first cars out of the pits and together with team mate Jordan took it in turns to top the time sheets. Ten minutes into the session Giovanardi was first, with Jordan just behind in second. The duo looked unchallenged for the remainder of the session, as Neal pushed hard to improve his grid spot for race one tomorrow. At the chequered flag, Giovanardi had taken pole, with Jordan due to line up alongside him on the front row, with Neal ninth.

The qualifying story took an unexpected twist however, when the top three cars were called into scrutineering. Having passed the necessary checks with flying colours, Giovanardi’s car wouldn’t restart under its own power – thereby failing to meet the full scrutineering requirements. As Giovanardi saw all his qualifying times deleted, Jordan was promoted to pole, and Neal also moved up one place to eighth.

VX Racing Technical Director Kevin Berry explained, “At the end of qualifying, the top three cars will automatically be checked, and Fabrizio’s car was obviously one of these. During scrutineering, the car is checked to make sure it abides by a minimum ride height, minimum weight and then must restart again under its own power, and unfortunately Fabrizio’s car wouldn’t restart, so he has had his times deleted. It’s very frustrating as Fabrizio worked really hard this morning to improve the car and now he has to start from the back.”

Jordan commented on his maiden BTCC pole with VX Racing, “I’m really pleased; the circumstances with Fabrizio aren’t ideal but I’m really happy with how the session went. They were probably the best laps I’ve ever driven.

“I was pleased to be second to be honest. We didn’t have very good pace in the car earlier, so we really had to dig deep and look at a lot of data and then just hooked it all together. I could see the clouds coming in, so I knew we had to get a quick lap under our belts. I went out and did a strong run to place us second, then got bumped down to third, so we had to dig deeper and we moved up again. Pole is pole and I’m really happy that I’ve secured it at my home track.”

Speaking about his qualifying performance, Matt Neal said, “It’s good for Andy, and terrible for Fabrizio and I’m not quite sure what happened to me. In second free practice the car felt great and had good balance. Then we came into qualifying and the car still had great balance but we couldn’t seem to find the speed in it. I’m really disappointed for the team, because the car is better than that. Fabrizio and Andy showed where the car should be. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow; we weren’t going to be on pole because of the weight we were carrying, but I’m still disappointed with the result. It’s going to make our job a little harder tomorrow, but we’ll do our best.”

A disappointed Giovanardi said, “I just don’t know what to say. The car was just perfect – until the end when something happened. I’m really disappointed as we did such a good job to improve the set up and the car felt great. Its going to be very hard now to get a good result, but obviously we will still be pushing tomorrow.”