Chris Smiley happy to bide his time with new Honda in TCR UK

Smiley, who clinched the title on his maiden campaign with Restart Racing, handed the FL5 version of Honda’s latest Civic Type R its competitive world debut at Snetterton last month.

In the opening 20-minute race Smiley scored a superb podium, with his case helped late on when third-placed Lewis Brown lost the rear of his Cupra Leon because of excessive tyre degradation.

His involvement in the reverse grid clash was considerably shorter, however, when a small patch of gravel that had been pulled out onto the first corner by race one winner Bruce Winfield caused him to crash.

The 31-year-old's Japanese hatch slammed head-first into the Armco barrier and suffered extensive undertray damage meaning he was left with no option but to park up and retire.

Ahead of qualifying today (2.55pm) and rounds three and four tomorrow (12.05pm and 5.35pm), Smiley is provisionally eighth on 33 points – 42 shy of early pacesetter Winfield.

“I am hopeful of building on what was a very positive start at Snetterton,” said Smiley. “We didn’t expect to be at the front straight away at what was the global debut for the new Honda Civic.

“But we have seen the teams running it in Italy, and the TCR World Tour are also getting to grips with it, so the car’s potential is absolutely excellent. I know we will be right up there before too long.”

Despite not having the opportunity to familiarise himself more with the Civic in the period between Snetterton and Croft, the Carrickfergus man is confident of giving a good account of himself.

“We haven’t been able to do any testing since Snetterton – the car’s actually been back to the factory for some tweaks and we’ve just got it back head of this weekend for Croft,” he explained.

“We have a race weekend under our belt with the Honda – and Croft is a very unique circuit – so we are hopeful of some strong results, but I would be happy if we could get back on the podium.

“As this season is a development year for the car and everyone involved with Restart Racing, the aim is to be scoring big points later on in what is still quite a long season.”