Aron Smith “over the moon” to score first BTCC pole

Aron Smith was “over the moon” to take his first British Touring Car Championship pole after storming to the top of the time sheets at the end of a frenetic qualifying session at Thruxton.

The Team BMR driver put in his pole lap during a final 7 minute shootout following two lengthy red flag periods for incidents around the track. Posting a lap time of 1:16.785, Smith took his first ever BTCC pole position and was delighted with the result.

“Before this year I wanted to get a pole postion,” Smith told TouringCarTimes. “Winning races is great and all, but I wanted to get my first ever pole because that’s when the cars are at their maximum and everyone’s driving out of their skin so to get that result I cant believe it, I’m over the moon.”

The session was split by two red flag incidents, with the drivers spending a total of 37 minutes in their cars waiting to get back on track and resume their hunt for the top of the grid.

“It’s hard,” continued Smith. “It’s a real mental game there, you need to stay real calm and regain composure and give it a crack. It is mental more than anything and we did it so I’m delighted. I had a vision of doing mid-to-high 16 so I knew that was in the bag when we went out and I just never got the track time to do it, then we went out at the end and pulled out that 16.7 for pole.”

Smith now heads to race one from pole confident of turning his strong qualifying pace in to a visit to the top step come race day on Sunday.

“I’m confident,” he said to TouringCarTimes. “The car is very very good so I think we can do it. I’ve done my race run, I know exactly what I’m doing, we’ll just get our heads down and hopefully drive off in to the distance.”