“It is such an honour to be a Factory Driver and to do that with a podium for Bentley Team M-Sport in the Blancpain GT Series is a dream come true,” a delighted Jordan explained after a storming drive into the night. “It was a pretty challenging weekend though — the call to race only came 3 weeks ago, so there really wasn’t much time to prepare, but I was ready for such a chance and really felt good when I got the call-up.
“That also meant that everything was in the unknown going into the weekend — I did not know the new car, I was part of a completely new driver pairing and I had never been to Paul Ricard before! “But I felt with the hard work M-Sport and Bentley had put in, we stood a pretty good chance of scoring some good points if I could get up to speed fast enough.
“I had expected Friday to be a challenge, but I was able to turn it around Saturday and then qualifying was tricky as we all made small mistakes on our hot laps, which cost us a top-ten grid position. “Still, 18th was still quite respectable in such a tough series.
“Because I was stepping into Guy Smith’s shoes, it meant that it was my job to start the race — something Guy had done to great effect in the past and while the risk was higher, I felt ready for the challenge in my first race for the Factory. “It was quite clear what I had to do for the first half of my first stint — no contact and be as smooth as possible on the tyres, but once I was into a rhythm we really found some great pace and I was picking the cars ahead off one by one.
“Then the team pulled off an incredible pit stop and I was able to work my way to P4 by the end of my two-hour double stint, which really was a dream start for me in the new team. “From there, the race really turned out well for us — we found ourselves in the lead with 30 minutes to go, but we unfortunately picked up a small issue when the bonnet came loose on the last lap and that cost us the race win!
“All things considered, I’m over the moon with this result — my first ever Blancpain podium on my debut for the Factory Bentley M-Sport Team is a dream come true,” Jordan concluded. “The big one — the Spa 24-hour is up next and the goal has to go one better there — there’s lots of time to improve the car, so we have a lot of hard work from now until then but I think we will be ready and come out fighting at the biggest GT race of the year. — bring it on!”