Team BMR's Aron Smith comes away from Thruxton having♍ been unable to capitalise on his first ever British Touring Car Championship pole position aboard the Volkswage𒅌n CC.

The Volkswagen driver beg⛄an his weekend in best fashion possible after narrowly beating Honda's Gordon Shedden to pole position around the high speed Hampshire circuit. But a sluggish getaway from the line in race one left had already put the Irishman on the back foot.

Smith's race then received a te🌠rminal blow when a high speed tyre blow out forced him into an early retirement whilst in pursuit of t🌊he leading Civic Type R's.

The 25-year olds luck didn't get any better when a tangle with Team Dynamics Matt Neal disrupted what looked to be likely run to the podium in race two before not being abl🦋e to make any further progress during the last act♚ion of the weekend.

"Yeah not the day I hoped for bu🅘t I can leave here feeling really proud after taking my first pole position," Smith told.ltxcn.top.

"Best part of today [Sunday] is I'm going home now! But it's a shame I⛦ didn't do better however I'm still happy with my performance.

"Unfortunately I had the podium 💯stolen from in race one with that puncture, probably also had a podium stolen from me in race two with Matt Neal. Then in race three we just couldn't make the ground as it was a bit of a boring processional race, eighth was as good as I could do there."

Smith conceded he knew the two Honda's would have been difficult to beat around the Thruxton circuit but isn't getting too disheartened over🗹 what has turned out to be tricky beginning to the campaign for three-time race winner.

The former Motorbase racer has often been as quick, if not quicker than his BMR team mates Jason Plato and Colin Turk💎ington but finds himself sitting 40 points away from them in the championship.

"Unfortunately the Honda's have a distinct advantage around Thruxton. It's categorically been their⛦ best track for a long time. So I knew it was going to be a struggle to keep them at bay. I think we would have got P2 but the tyre let go,"ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ Smith continued.

"I think we've just been really unfortunate. I've been really happy with the pace I can show on track. I think my race cr♊aft has been bang on the money. We've just had a few little issues and problems which has just curtailed my performance."