British Touring Car Championship: Andrew Jordan on pole position at Brands Hatch
Andrew Jordan took pole position at the opening round of the 2013 BTCC in difficult weather conditions at Brands Hatch.
Last Updated: 30/03/13 6:28pm
Jordan had been fastest during free practice and he backed that up by setting a mark of 48.387 seconds to edge out reigning champion Gordon Shedden by under than a tenth of a second.
It was the third pole of Jordan's career and was secured in a session which was affected by sleet and hail.
"It's obviously nice to take pole when it's the only time in the year when everyone will run ballast-free," Jordan said.
"We've been really quick in testing too, but that's only the easy part done - the hard work starts tomorrow."
The MG KX Momentum duo of Jason Plato and Sam Tordoff line up third and fifth respectively for race one on Sunday, with Honda Yuasa Racing's Matt Neal in fourth. David Newsham rounded out the top six.
A number of drivers spun on their out-laps. Pirtek's Jeff Smith came a cropper on the run-up to Druids and Colin Turkington lost control on the exit of the same hairpin, with Jack Goff then colliding with the 2009 champion.
While Turkington managed to get his damaged BMW back to the pits, Goff's session ended there and then.
After a red flag period some of the less heralded names set the pace, before Jordan made his first move with 20 minutes of the session remaining.
Shedden fought back and made his first appearance at the top of the order with a time of 48.483s, but Jordan then responded to take top spot for good.
Qualifying result:
1 Andrew Jordan (Gbr) Honda 48.387secs
2 Gordon Shedden (Gbr) Honda 48.483
3 Jason Plato (Gbr) MG 48.571
4 Matt Neal (Gbr) Honda 48.614
5 Sam Tordoff (Gbr) MG 48.726
6 Dave Newsham (Gbr) Toyota 48.827
7 Rob Austin (Gbr) Audi 48.844
8 Jeff Smith (Gbr) Honda 48.914
9 Nick Foster (Gbr) BMW 49.201
10 Adam Morgan (Gbr) Toyota 49.203
