Aron Taylor-Smith won the wildest British Touring Car Championship race in some years at Brands Hatch, a contest that was run on slicks in the wet and was finally red-flagged.
The effervescent Dubliner, who had not won a BTCC round for 10 years, started his Speedworks Motorsport-run Laser Tools Toyota Corolla GR Sport from 13th, but picked his way through the field to take the lead from Ricky Collard with 10 of the scheduled laps remaining.
The only driver able to match Taylor-Smith’s progress in the grotty conditions appeared to be Josh Cook, indicating that the Speedworks team has a demon set-up for the Toyota on slicks in the wet.
But Cook’s challenge ended when, seconds after Taylor-Smith had taken the lead, he left the road at Paddock Hill Bend while running fourth and lost several places as he ran through the gravel.
Ashley Sutton led initially in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium, but with team-mate Lewis Selby in the gravel at Druids, the safety car was called. One and a half laps after the restart, Collard sliced his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback past Sutton at Surtees, but could not get away.
Contact was rife in the pack as Sutton, Tom Ingram, Charles Rainford, Dan Cammish and the rest fought, while Taylor-Smith began picking his way up the order from 15th at the time of the safety car.
Making their performances even more impressive, Collard and Sutton were on the medium tyre in this race – two of just four drivers in the field not using the soft. But they couldn’t hold back Taylor-Smith and, just after the Toyota went into the lead, Sutton also got past Collard at Surtees for second.
That was the order when, on the 22nd lap of 27, contact from Ingram’s Excelr8 Hyundai sent Rainford’s West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport flying off the road and into the barrier at Druids.
Moments later, under yellow flags, Dan Rowbottom – his Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon fitted with wet-weather tyres after a pitstop – nerfed Sam Osborne’s Alliance Ford off the road and into the stricken BMW of Rainford.
Taylor-Smith had built up a lead of almost 4.5 seconds in the five laps since taking the lead, and was declared the winner when the race was red-flagged.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I was just hanging on for dear life, thinking, ‘Am I actually going to have a chance?’, and then, when I was driving away, it was, ‘Oh my God, I am going to do this!’ Craig [Porley, Taylor-Smith’s engineer] and the team have given me something I can trust. I can get it dancing around and not be a passenger anymore.”
Ingram was classified fourth ahead of the Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloons of Aiden Moffat and Mikey Doble. Seventh was Cook while eighth, a great recovery from a tough start to the weekend, went to James Dorlin in his Restart Racing Hyundai – and the Yorkshireman has been drawn on reversed-grid pole position.
Completing the top 10 were Dexter Patterson (PMR Audi) and Daryl De Leon (WSR BMW).
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– The Autosport.com Team
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