BTCC star Jordan back to World Rallycross as Ekstrom Audi stand-in

Jordan, the 2013 BTCC champion, raced for Team Peugeot-Hansen at the British World RX return at Lydden Hill earlier this year, and made the semi-finals.

He will drive Ekstrom's Audi while the double DTM champion is racing in the series' finale at Hockenheim that weekend.

"This is a new team, new car and a new track for me," Jordan told AUTOSPORT.

"The last couple of events I've done in World RX have been at a circuit I know [Lydden], so I need to put a lot of work in with studying the circuit in Italy so I can be as up to speed as possible.

"I'll put in as much preparation as I can before the event to make sure that come the first run in practice, I'm on it.

"You don't want to still be learning the circuit in the second heat, we want to be on a reasonable pace come the first run."

Jordan finished on the podium at Lydden in 2014 driving a Ford Fiesta, and thinks he will be helped in Italy by already having been in a Supercar this season.

"On the Saturday evening at Lydden I wished I could just start again because the whole scene, the start procedure, everything takes a while to get into," he said.

"Although I'd done it a year ago, everything happens very quickly and it's very intense, so it's good that I've raced in rallycross more recently this time."

The Red Bull-backed driver tested for the squad with Ekstrom recently in Sweden, and hopes to make it into the final at Franciacorta.

"It's a very responsive car to driver inputs, which is something I like in anything I drive," he said.

"EKS is a very professional team and Mattias brings a lot of his attention to detail from circuit racing.

"It's difficult to jump into any championship when there are top guys there and it's not your regular series, but I think we can be on the pace.

"If I could get to the final in Italy I think that would be a really, really good job. It's going to be tough, but that's my aim."

Jordan will be reunited with British engineer Adam Hardy, who guided him to his BTCC title in 2013 and now works with the EKS team.

"Adam and I know each other very well, he kind of knows what I'm thinking without me saying anything a lot of the time," said Jordan.

"He will push me very hard and I'm really looking forward to it."