The hotly anticipated 2021 British Touring Car Championship kicked off in dramatic fashion at Thruxton circuit in Andover on the 8th & 9th of May. The UK’s premier motorsport championship didn’t disappoint with close wheel-to-wheel action throughout the weekend and the brand new Cupra Leon showing some of it’s true potential in the hands of Global Robots supported driver Aron Taylor-Smith as the new car scored points on it’s debut race weekend.
The weekend was full of mixed conditions for the Irish driver as he battled with learning how the new Cupra would respond around the UK’s fastest circuit while also taking on wet conditions for the first time in the BTCC. Saturday of each race weekend consists of two free practises before each drive gets the chance to set their grid position for the first race. The team battled the conditions to extract the most from the new car on its first run at Thruxton. Read what Aron had to say about the day after ending up P19 in qualifying;
Aron Taylor-Smith: “Today was a tough day. When you look at it, every session had changing conditions. We’ve never put wets on the CUPRA so straight away we were wondering what it would do. In FP1, we thought we had a lot more potential to come, in FP2 we went slightly wrong but unfortunately in qualifying, we had a few gremlins creep in that really hurt us.
“There are positives. We got one timed lap on slicks which was good enough to put us where we were but was also massively faster than any other car on their first timed lap on slicks. The potential was there. As for the second time lap, even from a driver’s perspective, you know where the damp is, you know how much to push, there was probably another two seconds in it. All of a sudden, we would have gone from where we were to inside the top 10 and we would have felt like that was a good start. Unfortunately, we just didn’t show our potential. There were a few issues between a number of things, no one’s direct fault, but we know it won’t happen again.
Race day couldn’t come quick enough for the Irish ace as he had his sights set on scoring his first points in the BTCC upon his return. Again, another set of variables faced the team as they embarked on yet another unknown having never used the hard compound tyre for a race distance. Aron chipped away over the course of the day and moved forward in each race finishing 18th in race one, 15th in race two and a high of 11th in race three in wet conditions. The Global Robots supported driver battled against multiple champions throughout the race day and eventually ended up scoring some valuable championship points. With points being scored for the top fifteen finishers a milestone had been reached on the car’s first weekend.
Aron-Taylor Smith: “For the CUPRA’s first weekend, every variable possible was thrown at it, from a new tyre compound on the hard tyre, to changeable conditions, to wet conditions, to even just running on wets for the first time, there were so many variables that needed to be overcome throughout the weekend and to be fair, everyone in the team took it in their stride.
“We made significant progress between race 1 and 2 and again from 2 to 3. For me, I’ve left there more confident than I’ve ever been in this team. This package, this new chassis, I know that everything has enormous potential and that it will challenge at the front. We are scraping at the surface of what it can achieve and already we are on the pace which is an enormous credit to everyone in the team, on the engineering and mechanical side and on the media side too.
“It’s also not lost on me that this is my first touring car and front wheel drive race weekend in 4 years and my first race weekend in over 12 months. For the team to have made me feel as comfortable as I am within the car, the crew and the race conditions is a credit again to the structure that both Tony and Jamie have built. It’s only the start, and I can already tell there is going to be a very successful future. I couldn’t be happier to come away with a few good races under my belt knowing that we have a lot of potential and now we will roll into Snetterton and hopefully be in an even better place.”
The BTCC hits the track again at Snetterton on the 12th & 13th of June at Snetterton. Keep up to date with Aron’s progress by keeping an eye on our social media pages & website over the coming few weeks.
