Aron Smith penalised for Jason Plato contact

Motorbase Performance’s Aron Smith picked up a three point endorsement on his licence and a £500 fine for the incident in race one which took Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Jason Plato out of the race.

Jason Plato and Aron Smith were battling for second place on the second lap of the race, with Smith making contact with Plato’s MG6 at Clark’s curve, which sent Plato off the track and into the gravel, which was one of the incidents which brought out the safety car.

Speaking to circuit reporter Alan Hyde at the track during the race, Plato blasted Smith’s actions and threatened to take action against the 22-year-old.

“Down the back straight it was bang-bang-bang in my backside, and the same on the start-finish straight,” said Plato.

“That car has so much straight-line speed over me it’s unbelievable,” added Plato. “There are two things you can deduce, either he did it on purpose and wanted to take me out, or if not he needs to have his licence taken away.”

Aron Smith went on to finish fourth in the race, taking his best result of the year, and responding to Plato’s comments over the tannoy, Smith told TouringCarTimes:
“I don’t think he’s No.1 in the Aron Smith fan club unfortunately, but I have wrist bands if he wants one.”

“I’ve heard his opinion and where he’s coming from, but the problem is where we went into Clark’s, he defends to the inside so I ran to the outside, and then he moves to the left and moved back to the right, so he actually moved twice, which in the rule books it says you can’t do that,” said Smith.

“Then when we got on the brakes into Clark’s he just didn’t turn in. When you watch the footage you see Tom Onslow-Cole was able to turn in beneath the two of us and make the corner, so (Plato) left me with either going into the gravel or turning for the corner, and we’d already gone a car length past the apex.”

“If he had just turned in like every other lap, we would have went through that corner no problem and continued to race.”

“I grew up watching him so I have so much respect for him, he’s the best person in the paddock, he is a master of his craft, and I’d hate to get off on this foot. I did get points on my licence which we’ve considered appealing, because there’s been incidents in the past, like with my team-mate Liam Griffin and Lea Wood at Croft where they tangled, and that was an identical incident.”