Aron Smith: “I think we can give the RML parts a run for their money”

Aron Smith is hopeful that the close nature between those teams running the new RML parts and those still running GPRM components will continue throughout the season after another strong race weekend at Donington Park.

The Team BKR driver scored another podium result at Donington Park in the ex-Team BMR Volkswagen CC, and against all pre-season odds now holds an eight point lead at the top of the Independents’ Championship standings.

“It’s going good you know, we’re chipping away, that’s the main thing,” Smith told TouringCarTimes. “Just got to see how I get on and collect as many points as possible. It’s going to take a long time really [to mount a championship challenge]. We’re only on the second weekend, I’ll try my best it’s all I can do. Everyone in the team’s doing a great job, we’ve got a pretty decent package beneath us and we’ll see how we get on for the first half of the year.”

Team BKR are one of the few cars on the grid to still be running a full set of the old GPRM components, with the results showing they have the knowledge of a season of running as opposed to the relatively small amount of time the other teams have had to get to grips with the RML components.

“We know the setups, we are changing them based on track conditions but we have a very good base package, we don’t want to go a million miles from there,” explained Smith. “The RML bits are very good obviously, probably a little bit faster on entry into the corners but we’re still chipping away, I think we can give them a run for their money.”

When asked if he thought the RML components would be the package to have for the remainder of the year, Smith was hopeful that the equality would remain and that there would be good close racing between both configurations for the entire season.

“I would’ve said they would’ve been as good as they’re gonna be at the start of the year,” offered Smith. “A lot of them have done a lot of testing, and that’s the thing it’s just test miles. Yeah they’ll find bits here and there, we possibly could as well so hopefully no-one gets too much of an advantage and we can actually race it fair and proper with everyone.”