Aron Smith wins wet to dry final race at Oulton Park
Aron Smith held his nerve on a rapidly drying track to take a maiden win for Team BMR and the Volkswagen CC, leading from lights to flag ahead of Gordon Shedden and Jason Plato.
The Irishman notched up his second career win in the BTCC in extremely testing conditions, with bright sunshine drying out a track which had been soaked by a torrential downpour 45 minutes before the start.
He managed to keep Honda Racing Team’s Shedden and Triple Eight’s Plato at arm’s length throughout, in a tension-filled encounter.
Behind the top three, West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington signed off on an excellent weekend with fourth, but could have been third were it not for contact from Plato at Island on lap 11.
Rob Austin also enjoyed another excellent run to fifth in his Audi A4, ahead of Sam Tordoff and Alain Menu, while reigning champion Andrew Jordan could do no better than eighth.
Motorbase Performance pair Mat Jackson and Fabrizio Giovanardi completed the top 10, but it could have been so much better for the former, who spun out of second place on the third lap.
Rob Collard finished a disappointed 11th, losing the chance of a podium after being the second BMW 125i to be on the receiving end of contact from Plato. The MG man dived up the inside at Lodge on lap six and the pair made contact, dropping Collard out of contention.
The safety car made its second appearance of the day on the first lap, after Hunter Abbott, Jack Goff and Matt Neal all went off at Old Hall.
There was also disappointment for front-row starter Tom Ingram, whose Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis stopped out on track on the opening tour with an apparent technical problem.
After a lap behind the safety car, Jackson had a huge moment going into Cascades, and although he was able to half-catch it, he lost a huge number of positions.
Rotek Racing’s Robb Holland had risen to an excellent 12th when he disappointingly stopped on lap four, before Collard and Plato had their incident on lap six.
It allowed Turkington to pass them both, and for a while he looked likely to pass Shedden for second. But he slowly slipped back into the clutches of Plato, who passed him at Old Hall on lap 10.
Turkington swiftly re-passed into Cascades, before the decisive tap from the MG at Island.
Only 23 cars finished an attritional race, with James Cole’s run to 20th causing some degree of interest, as he was the only driver who started the race on slicks. The United Autosports man ran at the tail of the field for much of the race, before setting fastest lap by some five seconds.
