Aron Smith admitted he was pleased with the continued strong showing from Team BKR after they finished the opening free practice session of the weekend at Donington Park fourth fastest with a time of 1:11.454, 0.469 seconds slower than pace-setter Josh Cook.
However, the Irishman, who claimed the team’s maiden podium finish at their very first BTCC outing a fortnight ago at Brands Hatch, also pointed to the irrelevance of free practice in the wider context of the race weekend when he spoke to TouringCars.net shortly after stepping out of his Volkswagen CC.
“It’s grand. You can’t take anything from free practice, to be honest, so I wouldn’t read too much into it,” admitted Smith.
“It’s more of a shakedown, scrubbing everything, making sure we’re in good shape and the car feels on the money. We’re there or thereabouts and we’re not really trying that hard.”
The three-time race winner also pointed to the strength of the Volkswagen CC as a package, even one running the older GPRM control components, and believes that a continuation of BKR’s steady development program across the second free practice session, which gets underway at 12:10, will stand them in good stead ahead of this afternoon’s qualifying session.
“The car is quick here, so we’ll be fine. I think we have a fair old chance at this, so we’ll just keep our heads down. We’ll keep chipping away in the free practices, at least we’re not last! That’s always a positive.”
Live text commentary of the second session will be available via TouringCars.net