British GT (GT2) Mondello Park 18/09/2005

Second for Paragon at Mondello Park

Mike Jordan and Michael Caine has their best weekend of the British GT Championship season for Team Eurotech at Mondello Park (17/18 September), when they finished a fighting second in the John Guest-backed Porsche 911GT3RSR. 

The second place in Sunday's race backed up fourth place in the opening race, while the team's Preci-Spark supported car of David and Godfrey Jones collected seventh and fourth places in the pair of races.  "It was a very good weekend," confirmed Jordan. "In British GT terms, it was our best weekend of the season."   

A successful test session at Pembrey recently had paid dividends in the build up to the Irish races. The set-up of the Porsche, which is also supported by Pirtek, was just about spot-on for the bumpy Mondello track.  For the opening race on Saturday, Jordan qualified second, just three-tenths of a second away from the leading Ferrari and ran second in the race until most of the field pitted together during a safety car period. Caine rejoined in second, but was just unable to fend off the Ferrari of Tim Mullen and the Porsche 911GT3RSR of Ben Collins.   

In Sunday's race, Caine slotted into third behind Collins off the start and had to race hard to fend off touring car racer Anthony Reid (Nissan 350Z). As the pit-stop window arrived, the Eurotech car pitted a lap after the Embassy Racing Porsche of Collins and Neil Cunningham.   

However, Jordan had spotted that the Embassy stop was not particularly rapid and saw an opportunity. With a great team effort, they got the John Guest Porsche back onto the track just as Cunningham came past and Jordan was able to grab second place.  For the remaining 32 minutes, Jordan was able to fend off Cunningham as they raced nose-to-tail. Jordan was determined to hold onto second place and after more than half an hour of driving flat out, he was just half a second up on his rival. 

"It's always good racing with Neil; he's very fair," said Jordan after a tremendous race.