Aron Smith raring to go from tail of the field

Aron Smith thinks his newly-repaired Volkswagen CC should fly forward from the rear of the grid at Thruxton, after a hefty accident curtailed his running on Saturday.

The Irishman went off at Allard at the end of the first free practice session and did extensive damage to the subframe of his car, which meant a long day of work for his Team BMR mechanics.

Smith wasn’t able to set a lap in qualifying, which means he will start at the back of the 30-car grid for the first race, which gets under way in about an hour’s time.

Describing the accident to TouringCarTimes, Smith said: “It was a bad old whack, to be fair. The whole subframe was torn apart, so it did a hell of a lot of damage.

“The guys worked unbelievably hard on it. Just the way the damage occurred meant they had to strip the chassis down and start again. They were here until 10 o’clock last night, and now it’s back to looking brand spanker.

“I’m looking forward to getting out on track and repaying their efforts. I think I’m in for the most enjoyable day of anyone on the grid.

“Sometimes, if you qualify at the front, you are a little bit stressed about how it will go, but we can only go forward. We are starting the weekend in reverse, but we can just aim for race three.

“Alain [Menu] did a lot of work setup-wise, and we have a clear direction of where we need to go today. I’ve put a little bit of a unique twist on it, because if you follow someone directly it will never work in your favour. I think we should fly.”