Season-best showing for reinvigorated Aron Taylor-Smith at Thruxton

Photo: Jakob Ebrey

Aron Taylor-Smith enjoyed a more encouraging weekend in the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship, picking up yet more valuable points and scoring a season-best result across three high-speed contests at Thruxton.

After a difficult start to life at TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK, the Dubliner touched down at the 2.4-mile Hampshire venue – often billed as the fastest circuit in the country and a personal favourite of Taylor-Smith’s – keen to make up lost ground and build on a hat-trick of points finishes at Snetterton last time out.

That promise translated to Saturday’s free practice sessions, where in the dry the #40 Corolla GR Sport was a fixture in the top-ten. Torrential rain before the start of qualifying, however, changed the game, with a number of the series’ leading lights caught out by the now-treacherous conditions on track.

There was more bad luck to follow, as a failure on the front splitter not only hampered Taylor-Smith’s efforts on track – in which he was unlucky to miss out on Q2 by three tenths of a second – but also ensured the car failed the post-qualifying technical checks, banishing the popular Irishman to the rear of the grid for race day.

But Taylor-Smith re-grouped overnight, and took full advantage of the skill, experience and resilience that have helped him to amass four race wins, 22 podiums and over 1,400 career points in the UK’s premier motorsport series to bounce back, gain 26 positions across three races on Sunday and come away with a season-best result.

A lightning start for the reigning Independent Champion in the opening race allowed Taylor-Smith to pick his way through the early chaos and move up four places to P19, before an early safety car paused the action.

When it resumed, so did Taylor-Smith’s charge up the order, and he duly dispensed with a further seven cars over the remaining distance to take the chequered flag in P12, an impressive gain of 11 places and more valuable points on the board.

A stellar comeback story continued to take shape in the second contest – or so it seemed. Picking up where he’d left off, a fast-starting Taylor-Smith climbed into the top ten at the start, before dispensing with Speedworks Motorsport team-mate James Dorlin next time by to run P9 and lead the team’s charge.

A penalty for Morgan’s Hyundai ahead looked set to hand Taylor-Smith a deserved seventh over the line, but an unfortunate puncture on the final lap of the race left the #40 limping for home, eventually classified back in P17.

From the ninth row of the grid, Taylor-Smith dug deep once again, and put in a stellar drive in the finale to end the weekend in sixth, his best result of the campaign so far, and as the leading Toyota. The next three rounds take place at Oulton Park, Cheshire on 21-22 June.

Aron Taylor-Smith (#40) said:

“Every once in a while, a weekend comes along that really reminds you what a rollercoaster ride competing in the British Touring Car Championship is, and this weekend at Thruxton definitely falls into that category!

“The real positive is the step forward we’ve made with the Toyota Corolla GR Sport. For the first time, I feel like I’m driving ‘my car’, and it’s adapting to me, not the other way around. I’ve had this breakthrough moment in the past with other teams, and positive things always follow.

“Everybody at TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK and Speedworks Motorsport has been working their tails off to make that breakthrough, so hats off to them. It feels as though we’ve turned a real corner, and we can kick on from here and really showcase the potential this car has.

“There’s every chance we could have walked away today with some silverware; had I not had the puncture at the end of race two, we’d have been on reverse grid pole. As it is, we’ll take two points finishes, and especially how we were able to move up through the field to achieve them. All in all, an encouraging day at the office.”