Friday favourite: A BTCC champion on his landmark cars and team-mate

Andrew Jordan has plenty of cars of cars to choose from when it comes to selecting his favourite. The 2013 British Touring Car champion has competed in historic racing and the World Rallycross Championship, but it’s a machine he’s not yet raced that stands out.

“I drove Mark Sumpter’s Porsche 962 in a test at Donington Park,” recalls the 33-year-old. “When I say ‘favourite’, I don’t mean fun driving, I just mean the most mind-blowing performance. I hadn’t driven massive aero and that car can do sub-60-second laps at Donington. It’s really quick but also old and you’re so far forward in it.”

Sumpter’s 962 is one of the last built, with improved aero, so had more downforce than Jordan was used to. “You have to trust the aero – you’ve got all the grip but when it goes, it goes,” says Jordan. “They’re scary quick and you can see why they’re so expensive to run, but I’d love to race one.”

Of the cars he has raced, it’s the front-wheel-drive NGTC-spec Eurotech Honda Civic FK2 Jordan took to six wins on his way to the 2013 BTCC crown that tops the list.

“It has to be the championship-winning Civic,” he says. “There have been some great historic cars, but that did as much as you’d ever want it to. I knew it so well and it gave me good feedback.”

Although he clinched his BTCC title at Brands Hatch, it’s his visits to the high-speed Thruxton circuit that stands out for Jordan. He took pole at the Hampshire speedbowl in 2012, 2013 and 2014, outpacing the factory Team Dynamics Civics of Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal.

“It got to the point there where we’d turn up and expect to be on pole there,” he says. “It sounds arrogant, but Thruxton always suited the car and I was good there.

“It had a short wheelbase and it was edgy, so you had to be comfortable with it moving around. I’ve driven cars that are easier and less edgy but slower. Watching the onboards from 2013 and 2014, it’s like I’m catching a wasp as lot of the time!”

Jordan took pole at Thruxton three years in a row between 2012 and 2014 in his family-run Eurotech Civic

Photo by: JEP/Motorsport Images

He might have several candidates when it comes to the car, but Jordan doesn’t take long to select his best team-mate…

“Turks has got to be up there,” he says. “If you want to win the BTCC, you have to beat Colin in that BMW.”

Jordan fought West Surrey Racing stablemate Colin Turkington throughout the 2019 BTCC and fell just two points short of a second crown, so it’s perhaps no surprise that he picks the Northern Irishman as his top team-mate. Jordan took six wins to Turkington’s five but a pointless Donington Park event following a race-one crash and his colleague’s consistency made the difference.

“I felt I had the measure of him in 2019, but he always made you dig deep and his preparation was always very good,” adds Jordan. “I drive a lot more on feel, he’s more analytical.”

"Over the season Colin is the guy you have to beat. He’s clever" Andrew Jordan

The title fight got tense towards the end of the campaign, but Jordan admits that was more about him trying to unsettle his rival than anything else: “He was pretty chill. It got a bit frosty at the end but that was circumstances and I was probably stoking the fire a bit to try and make it more awkward, to find an edge.”

Jordan had got used to being the obvious team leader at Eurotech and in a switch to the Triple Eight MG6 alongside Jack Goff in 2015: “That was the first time I thought, ‘There are people who are quicker than me on some days’, which is naïve and you have to accept that,” adds the 26-time BTCC winner.

Jordan beat Goff in the points – fifth to ninth – though it was Goff who took the ageing car’s only win of the season. Nevertheless, that season and the year alongside Mat Jackson, who finished ahead in the 2016 standings, in Motorbase’s Ford Focus helped prepare Jordan for taking on the now four-time BTCC champion at WSR.

Turkington finished ahead in both 2017 and 2018 with the 125i M Sport before both got their hands on the new 330i M Sport, which morphed into the 330e M Sport for 2022.

“I think 2019 was my best year since my title and I felt I should have won it but I didn’t,” concludes Jordan. “Over the season Colin is the guy you have to beat. He’s clever.”