Team BMR𓄧's Aron Smith comes away from Thruxton having been unable to capitalise on his first ever British Touring Car Championship pole position aboa✃rd the Volkswagen CC.

The Volkswagen driver began his weekend in best fashion possible after naꦓrrowly 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 I🌺rishman on the back foot.

Sm𒉰ith's race then received a terminal blow when a high speed tyre blow out forced him into📖 an early retirement whilst in pursuit of the 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 no🎉t being able to make any further progress during the last action of the weekend.

"Yeah not the day I hoped for but I can leave here feeling really proud aft𒐪er taking my first pole position," Smith told.l💦txcn.top.

"Best part of today [Sunday] is I'm goi♊ng home now! But it's a shame I didn't do bette💞r however I'm still happy with my performance.

"Unfortunately I had the podium stolen from in race one with that punct🐼ure, 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 processionalꦛ race, eighth was as good as I could do there."

Smith conceded he knew the two Honda's would have been difficult to bಞeat around the Thruxton circuit but isn't getting too disheartened over what ha🗹s 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 Turkington but finds h🦹imself sitting 40 points away from them in the championship.

"Unfort♊unately 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 b🌠ut the tyre let go," Smith continued.

"I think we've just bee🦋n really unfortunate. I've been really happy with the pace I ꦬcan show on track. I think my race craft has been bang on the money. We've just had a few little issues and problems which has just curtailed my performance."