Autosport tests the BTCC title winner

Many motorsporting adventures begin as father-and-son bonding exercises, but rarely do they lead to a British Touring Car Championship title. That Andrew Jordan and his father Mike have achieved just that is a fairytale result for the Midlanders and their family-run Eurotech team.

That squad can trace its origins to ex-Formula Ford racer Mike's impulsive purchase of a 1972 Porsche 911E, which he used to win the 1987 Porsche Cup. Little could he have known that, a quarter of a century later, it would ultimately lead to his son claiming one of the biggest prizes in British motorsport.

"I raced Formula Ford for a season, but gave up because I blew an engine and couldn't afford to carry on," recalls Jordan Sr. "I had mates who let me have a go in their classic saloons, but I'd retired really, and had a family on the way.

"Then my dad left me £8500 when he died and I used it to buy a 911E and win the 1987 Pirelli Porsche Cup. We'd just had our daughter Sarah, we had no money and we were living in a small maisonette. I sat down with my wife and we said 'what shall we do with the money?'

"I'd seen the car for sale and I said, 'I'd quite like to buy that'. She said 'do it'.

"I didn't have the money to run it, but I was working on spanners in a TVR garage and a guy from the mobile phone and telecoms trade came in for a service and saw the Porsche. He said: 'what are you going to do with it?' I said: 'Race it! But I haven't got the money'.

"'You'll need sponsorship then,' he said. He asked me how much a season would cost and when I told him he said: 'I'll put that up. But promise you'll win it because we'll make a big deal of it in my industry.

"Without those two thing - having the balls to buy a car I had no money to run, and meeting this mobile phone guy from Birmingham, none of this would have happened.

"Winning the BTCC is the culmination of all of that and it's very satisfying. I was British GT champion in 2001, so now we have two 'best of British' trophies!"

Only a few days after Andrew Jordan's historic moment at Brands Hatch, Eurotech is back to business with its Team Dynamics-built Honda Civic - rocking up to Donington Park for one final test before packing away for the winter.

"I drove the truck in myself this morning and suddenly it dawned on me that we're doing this for the first time as BTCC champions," says Mike. "That was a nice feeling!"

But this post-season test is unusual for two reasons: Not only is Eurotech operating for the first time as outright BTCC title holder, the Jordans are also going to allow AUTOSPORT to drive their championship-winning pride and joy, to find out what it's like to live in the office of a BTCC title winner.

"The plan is for Andy to go out first to warm everything up," says engineer Adam Hardy, who worked with Andy during his year with the works Triple Eight Vauxhall team in 2009, then spent some time in Aussie V8s before reuniting with the Jordans at the start of last season.

"Then we'll put you out for three or four laps to acclimatise, then 10 laps to build a rhythm. We'll debrief and look at data after that, then let you back out for a couple more runs."

As I'm suiting up in preparation, Jordan Sr (no stranger to success behind the wheel of a touring car himself) offers some words of advice about the challenge to come: "The cars are 1280kg so they feel heavy, like a front-wheel-drive GT car," he explains.

"It puts a lot of strain on the brakes - we go through three sets of discs a meeting and would put new ones on for every session at a BTCC round if we had more budget! "There are two types of pad: the 'sprint' pads are very good, but the enduro pads take a different style with more brake pressure to come alive. Andy produces monstrous initial pressure on the pedal, then bleeds off.

"You can left-foot-brake because the gearshifts are clutchless up and down, but watch out if you lock the diff because the engine will stall. It shouldn't be a problem today, but if it's really wet Andy will use the clutch and right-foot-brake to avoid the risk.

"There's no pressure from us, just enjoy today."

"It's impossible not too," I say, as I step - suited and booted - out of the team truck and head for my date with the Pirtek-liveried Honda (probably the best-looking car on the grid).

Plus, the mirrors look next to useless. "I can see why touring car drivers keep driving into each other all the time," I remark to Hardy. "They can't see a thing!"

A seat insert helps move me forward and up, and I'm feeling a bit better about my environment as the Neil Brown Engineering-tuned two-litre turbocharged Honda engine is fired up, and the Civic rolled backwards out of the garage onto the Donington pitlane. I fail to give it enough revs on my first attempt to venture out onto the track, so the engine has to be re-fired before the Honda and I can get to know each other a little better.

I find visibility is much better once you're out on the track and your mind begins to focus on the job in hand. My first run is in the damp on treaded Dunlop tyres, the front two taking a pounding from all the power going through the front wheels.

It's a tentative exercise, because much of the circuit is still very slippery. In these conditions, the car feels like it has the right amount of power versus grip, and driving through the front wheels always helps with confidence on the throttle; the difficulty is knowing how hard to attack the turns - especially down through the Craner Curves and Old Hairpin where the track is at its wettest.

I am momentarily caught out here when the back breaks away and the Civic slides into a big oversteer moment through the fastest corner on the circuit. Remembering the 'if in doubt, flat-out' mantra of front-wheel driving, I manage to gather it back up with only a brief trip over the grass on the exit. Phew!

I haven't got away with it though, because it happens in grandstand view of Mike as he's putting some laps on Philip Walker's Ford GT40!

"I saw that," Mike says wryly when I come clean in the garage later. Andrew politely asks me to come into the pits if I have any more excursions, just in case any grass has lodged in the radiator. Whatever you say boss!

The car feels extremely surefooted almost all of the time, but when the grip disappears, it does so suddenly and with very little warning. My moment reveals to me how thin the knife-edge between 'total grip' and 'nothing' is with this car.

The clutchless gearshift (on which the team has done much work) is one of the most impressive features. It's lever- operation is silky-smooth in both directions and never misses a beat.

The engine pulls pretty well for a road-based two-litre turbo too, and propels the car deceptively fast along Donington's straights. The beefy brakes feel excellent as well, though I know I'm not nearly getting the best from them.

The power steering is another matter entirely. This TOCA- mandated system is something BTCC drivers have complained about regularly and I can see why.

The pump has to be turned to its maximum setting all the time (which surely can't help reliability) yet the car is very difficult to manipulate once it takes a set (rather like an old 1950s Aston Martin DB2 I drove here a few years ago) and the steering still feels heavier and more cumbersome than an elephant on tranquillizers.

"The power steering isn't great," concedes Jordan Sr. "It's not too bad on a fast, flowing circuit like this, but at tight and twisty tracks like Oulton Park it feels like the steering wheel is locked. There's no finesse. "Andy has just worked really hard on his upper body strength."

I feel I'm just starting to load up the steering properly at Redgate and McLeans as my first run comes to an end. I've managed to dip into the 1m19s, and easily overtake Team HARD's VW Passat while I'm at it. Though I probably should be doing so given I'm in this year's championship- winning car!

Adam kindly begins asking me about the balance and whether the car is pushing into understeer, but I resist the urge to act like I know what I'm talking about and instead tell him I'm still driving beneath the car at the moment, so there's little point making comments on set- up.

Adam's review of the data confirms my suspicions that my corner-entries need work. I'm not leaning late or hard enough on the brakes and thus making the most of their potential to help turn the car more quickly.

Instead, I am braking too early and for too long, making my turns a bit lazy and slow. My corners are "going on too long" as driver coach Rob Wilson would say. Though I'm told my use of the throttle pedal is "good", so that's something...

The driving style required sounds simple enough: heavy loading of the steering on the brakes as you pile straight for the apex, rotating the rear of the car as you bleed off the brake pedal to help it turn quicker and set the wheels straighter for a faster exit as you pick up the power again. 'Fast in, fast out'.

But it requires a high level of trust and confidence in the car to make it work - something Andy clearly has in spades as he later hops back into the car for an exploratory run on slick tyres.

The track is drying out and it's time for the real fun to begin!

Unfortunately, my planned 10-lap run on dry tyres becomes two truncated five-lap spurts interrupted by red flags. Mike advises me to do everything "15 metres early" in order to progressively load the car and not upset the rear too much, and I am warned each time by the team to take care in building the rear tyre temperatures up before pushing too hard (the bigger NGTC Dunlops take much longer to warm up than the old S2000-spec tyres).

The traffic and stoppages make this difficult to achieve and give me no chance to build the necessary rhythm. I take a couple of big slides at Coppice (on the first run) and Redgate (on the second) as signs I have not achieved the necessary equilibrium to attack. My best lap of 1m14.7s is a full 2.7s slower than Andy managed before I hopped back in to trundle around (though I did lose a second stuck behind a pesky Porsche Boxster at the chicane).

The car feels very heavy in the dry (I later learn we are running the maximum 45kg of success ballast, as is the norm when Eurotech tests these days) and you have to be extremely careful not to upset the car too much through the faster sweeps.

It tends to take a set course, which you have to run with or be "really busy on the wheel getting it to come back", as Andy puts it.

Back in the garage I remark to Mike how disjointed the different phases of cornering feel as you load and unload the steering. He tells me how Andy has managed to smooth them out by working hard on his technique: braking correctly and then further refining his steering inputs. "What he does with his steering mid-corner has given him the edge over the other Honda drivers this year," says Mike. "Getting within a second in one of these cars wouldn't take too long, but finding those last few tenths is really tricky."

Success on that journey of discovery is why Mike's son is now British Touring Car champion. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer family.

One of the key elements to Andrew Jordan's BTCC title has been the support of Pirtek. Not only have the company's colours made the Eurotech machines among the most striking on the grid, it has also provided the financial backing that has helped make the Honda Civic programme possible.

Mike Jordan first had dealings with Pirtek in 2004, when his John Guest contacts helped get a sticker on his British GT Porsche. Pirtek then remained a sponsor to JG as Eurotech went touring car racing.

The key moment came before the 2009 BTCC season. On the very day that Mike signed a deal for Andrew to join Triple Eight, John Guest withdrew its support as title sponsor as the economic crisis hit.

"I spent the next three weeks going to all our sponsors and managed to get Pirtek to step up to primary sponsor," says Jordan Sr. "Others, like long-term supporter CBT increased their help, and Hillwood Autos gave us a workshop to use."

A bit of family borrowing combined with the extra support filled the gap.

But Jordan's 2009 season at Triple Eight was not great and Mike and Andrew had to pull out something special again in the October presentation to the Pirtek directors and 90 franchisees.

"I knew it was going to be a little bit difficult because we hadn't had a great year," he recalls. "I thought the only way we're going to get this back was to offer them a complete Pirtek car for 2010. A lot of them had always talked about Marcus Ambrose's Stone Brothers car in Australia.

"I was very aware some of the company felt the motor racing had run its course, the economy was in a dreadful state and they should not continue. I stood up, knowing if we didn't do this our team and Andrew's career were finished. I said: 'I think you are fundamentally wrong not to continue and this is why'.

"The last picture on my powerpoint presentation was the 2009 Vectra done like the Stone Brothers car for 2010. They all stood up and clapped!"

A vote from all the franchisees would be the decider and the Jordans gained enough support to sign off the project. It had worked, Eurotech brought a Vauxhall Vectra and the Pirtek board, headed by chairman Kelvin Roberts, pledged its full support. Pirtek committed to a two-year deal prior to 2012, allowing Eurotech to buy the new NGTC Honda Civic, and the programme has subsequently been extended until the end of 2015.

"It made us comfortable and gave us stability," adds Mike. "They've turned into a fantastic sponsor. "It makes me smile when I hear that Andrew got here on family backing. Without the commercial partners we've had since I won in Porsches, neither of us would have achieved the success we have."

ANDERSON VS JORDAN - THE DATA

1. Andrew is fractionally later on the brakes into Redgate, but I make all that time back mid-corner as I bleed off the pedal. Andy's got the car better lined up for the exit, though, so gains time on the way out.

2. I lose a second to Andy through the Craner Curves/Old Hairpin and up the hill that follows. I'm too gentle with the steering and let the car run too far to the right exiting the Craners, putting me off line for Old Hairpin.

3. Andy is more committed at McLeans, staying flat through Schwantz Curve and braking much harder and for less time entering the right- hander. My lazy entry means I gain on the exit by being earlier on the throttle.

4. Coppice is the only part of the lap where I gain time. Andy is fractionally later on the brakes, but I bleed off better and gain mid-corner. Our exits are almost identical, but I use fourth gear instead of third, which maybe helps.

5. Heavy traffic approaching the final chicane means I cannot brake properly for this right/left final section of the lap. I lose the best part of a second from here to the finish line trapped behind a Porsche Boxster.

Pictures - Jakob Ebrey

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