Apr 8-9 Brands Hatch (Indy)
May 13-14 Oulton Park (Island)
Jun 3-4 Thruxton
Jun 17-18 Knockhill
Jul 15-16 Croft
Jul 29-30 Donington Park (National)
Aug 12-13 Snetterton
Sept 9-10 Donington Park (International)
Sept 23-24 Brands Hatch (Indy)
Oct 14-15 Silverstone (National)

The Scholarship ‘Shoot-Out’ in Valencia

In order for Jordan to become a BMW Junior Scholarship driver two trips to the Valencia circuit ‘Ricardo Tormo’ were needed. These trips would have him heavily watched under the eyes of famous BMW drivers such as Jorg Muller, Andy Priaulx, Mike Strottman and Ralf Shalamek all whom which were or still are well credited drivers from the ETCC (European Touring Cars Championship.)

The first trip to the Valencia Course was to ensure that Jordan had the basic skills such as ‘Breaking Points’, ‘Racing Lines’, ‘Gear Changes’ and ‘General Knowledge’ with Racing Cars to be able to receive a full racing License. It would be from this essential racing criteria for which the instructors Jorg, Andy, Mike and Ralf would then choose the drivers that they thought were well established enough to warrant them coming back for, what they called ‘The Scholarship Shoot-out.’

This second trip consisted of two days they were designed to allow the drivers to now prove what they were capable of, and that the invite back for ‘Round 2’ was no fluke. Eighteen drivers from the initial twenty-six were brought back. During this time at the circuit the group was split up into two groups each doing a different thing. When one group was out on the circuit for twenty minutes the other would be in a class learning more about set-up on the car. This was done repetitively during the day. Both groups had three sessions each on the circuit which was plenty enough time to find the racing lines and the limit of a racing car of which, none of the drivers had ever driven before.

At the end of the first day all the drivers would go to the classroom where the instructors would de-brief them all on their driving. This was made un-easy by the fact that all the fathers and guardians of the drivers were also allowed to sit in and listen and also by the fact that these instructors were renowned to give extremely harsh comments to the drivers of which they all later found out!

Most of the comments to Jordan were good from those off Jorg and Andy (the brit.) Jordan earned the scholarship outright. This was aided by the mere fact that Jordan set the fastest lap by a full half a second in comparison to the other drivers!

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