Smith 'hoped for more' from Thruxton

Team BMR's Aron Smith comes away from Thruxton having been unable to capitalise on his first ever British Touring Car Championship pole position aboard the Volkswagen CC.

The Volkswagen driver began his weekend in best fashion possible after narrowly beating Honda's Gordon Shedden to pole position around the high speed Hampshire circuit. But a sluggish getaway from the line in race one left had already put the Irishman on the back foot.

Smith's race then received a terminal blow when a high speed tyre blow out forced him into an early retirement whilst in pursuit of the leading Civic Type R's.

The 25-year olds luck didn't get any better when a tangle with Team Dynamics Matt Neal disrupted what looked to be likely run to the podium in race two before not being able to make any further progress during the last action of the weekend.

"Yeah not the day I hoped for but I can leave here feeling really proud after taking my first pole position," Smith told.crash.net.

"Best part of today [Sunday] is I'm going home now! But it's a shame I didn't do better however I'm still happy with my performance.

"Unfortunately I had the podium stolen from in race one with that puncture, probably also had a podium stolen from me in race two with Matt Neal. Then in race three we just couldn't make the ground as it was a bit of a boring processional race, eighth was as good as I could do there."

Smith conceded he knew the two Honda's would have been difficult to beat around the Thruxton circuit but isn't getting too disheartened over what has turned out to be tricky beginning to the campaign for three-time race winner.

The former Motorbase racer has often been as quick, if not quicker than his BMR team mates Jason Plato and Colin Turkington but finds himself sitting 40 points away from them in the championship.

"Unfortunately the Honda's have a distinct advantage around Thruxton. It's categorically been their best track for a long time. So I knew it was going to be a struggle to keep them at bay. I think we would have got P2 but the tyre let go," Smith continued.

"I think we've just been really unfortunate. I've been really happy with the pace I can show on track. I think my race craft has been bang on the money. We've just had a few little issues and problems which has just curtailed my performance."