Jordan 'within striking distance' in BTCC title fight

BMW Pirtek Racing's Andrew Jordan has put himself 'within striking distance' of the British Touring Car Championship lead after securing a solid fourth place finish in the double-points race at Snetterton.

The BMW 125i M Sport driver has moved to within 32-points of the championship summit, now led by Tom Ingram, after banking a duo of top-ten points paying results during the BTCC's 60th anniversary meeting.

Having scored points in twelfth during a damp opening race, Jordan gradually moved his way up the order to finish ninth in race two, before finishing just off the podium in fourth during the Diamond Double third race.

Despite scoring the most points of any BMW driver at Snetterton, Jordan said a lack of ultimate pace cost him the chance of making further progress up the championship order.

"We’ve closed the gap but we’ve kind of had a missed opportunity," Jordan told Crash.net. "We haven’t had a very quick car all day really. We just scored good points through good consistency.

"But we can’t grumble at it, we’re still 32-points off the lead so we’re definitely within striking distance. Hopefully we can come out on race day at Rockingham and have a really quick car, I think we will.

"We maximised what we had today [Sunday], but I don’t think we had enough to challenge where we should have been."

With rain showers threatening to hit the circuit during the double-distance third race, Jordan admitted he was forced to hold station in fourth after taking a compromise on his BMW's race setup, with the changeable conditions in mind.

"We went for a compromise on the setup for the rain. When it started drizzling I started catching up the leaders. But the rain didn’t last long enough. From lap one I felt the car was too soft so it was all about managing the rear tyres," Jordan explained.

"It was damage limitation but still good points for the long distance race to get fourth."