Smith Doubles Up In Second Race
The Sunday AirAsia Clio Cup race was, like the first race on Saturday taken by Team Pyro’s Aron Smith as he took the win and with it hauled himself right into the title hunt.
Again starting from pole position, he drove a cool and composed race to keep championship leader and double champion Paul Rivett, behind him despite pressure for all but one lap of the race.
Smith who was overjoyed to get the double said after the race; “I was already in love with this place, now I love it even more. It was so much easier racing from pole so I think I’ll qualify on pole more often. Today’s race was even more enjoyable than yesterday’s as Paul was pushing me all the way – it was that much fun I could have raced with him all day long.”
Rivett came under attack right at the end from Smith’s teammate Jack Goff, but held on to take second and maintain his championship lead over TCR’s James Dixon.
“Aron was faultless and I couldn’t find a way past,” he said. “I did have a look for a way around the outside, but ended up losing position to Jack. I could see that Adam was right with him, and there was no way I was going to lose two places so I kept alongside Jack and went around the outside through Church – the fastest race corner in the UK. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
For Jack Goff, third place meant a welcome return to the podium after a difficult weekend last time out at Donington Park. He was understandably a very happy man after the race.
“That was a close race,” he said. “Paul was alongside me for what felt like three quarters of a lap. I thought that second place was mine and I couldn’t believe he was still beside me.”
For more reaction to the weekend from Jack Goff, look out for his next blog post on the site.
Fourth and Fifth went to Adam Bonham and Lee Pattison respectively. The result had to be considered a success after the impact on Saturday left his team working on the car until 03:30am Sunday morning. Perhaps even more so was that he suffered damage during Sundays race as well as he explained afterwards.
“I was feeling pretty comfortable in fourth after a battle with Adam, but then the radiator went pop and I lost grip from the coolant leaking at the front.”
Further down the field it was another string of bad luck for Jake Packun who endured a difficult weekend. Contact with Matt Allison early on avoiding a slow starting James Colburn bent his steering. Further contact later in the race with Tom Grice damaged it even further, but he managed to pilot himself to ninth place stating; “I’ve not had the best of weekends.”
Unfortunately for Matt Allison the weekend went from bad to worse as contact from the rear sent him sailing into the barrier bringing out the safety car; “I got a whack in the rear and the next thing I was turned into the barrier. It certainly wasn’t in the script.”
There is now a months break before the next round of the Championship at Oulton Park on the weekend of June 4/5.
The results of the two races at Thruxton leave the Championship standings as follows:
Championship Top Ten
1. Paul Rivett Lumison BlueSquare Data/SVE 161 pts
2. James Dixon Total Control Racing 140 pts
3. Aron Smith Team Pyro 134 pts
4. Jake Packun Get On Track Developments 107 pts
5. James Colburn Westbourne Motorsport 100 pts
6. Adam Bonham Team Pyro 90 pts
7. Jack Goff Team Pyro 89 pts
8. Tom Grice Total Control Racing 86 pts
9. Lee Pattison JHR Developments 85 pts
10. Chris Swanwick Team Pyro 81 pts
Photo credit: Jakob Ebrey
Richard Devine
