BTCC: Taylor-Smith claimed his first win in ten years at Brands Hatch

Árón Taylor-Smith returned to the top step of the podium for the first time in ten years at Brands Hatch Indy in special moment.

The Irishman joined the BTCC back in 2011 for the Knockhill round becoming the youngest driver on the grid. Scoring points on debut he would impress before moving into a full-time drive with Redstone Racing. 2012 he would prove to be one of Touring Cars rising stars claiming a podium at Silverstone and the following weekend his maiden victory at Brands Hatch.

From 2013 until 2017 he would claim sixteen further podiums and three race wins with the majority of that time spent in the Volkswagen CC. His last win would be in 2016 at Rockingham, claiming it in race three of the day and be the last time he saw the podium in the BTCC before moving away from the series for a couple of years.

He would return in 2021 with Team HARD with their Cupra León scoring points on a semi-regular basis before moving to Power Maxed Racing for 2023. Driving the Vauxhall Astra, his results naturally improved to claim his first two podiums since that final win in 2016. He would score another two podiums in 2024 with the team before move to Toyota for 2025. And then, it finally clicked for Taylor-Smith last weekend at Brands Hatch and at the first opportunity, he took advantage.

After a ninth place qualifying on Saturday, he dropped a few places on Sunday’s opening race due to the difficulties of front tyre wear found on all of the Toyota’s at Brands Hatch that weekend, it seemed like it would be a difficult day to get anywhere near the front for either Laser Tools Racing or Speedworks Motorsport.

Race 2 came around with the rain still lingering but not enough to force the switch to the wet weather tyre before the start of the race. The start of the race would see Taylor-Smith drop two places before a Safety Car was deployed for Lewis Selby. The race would go green again on lap seven with him making his way back to fourteenth quickly passing Daryl De Leon. He would make some solid progress on lap eight moving into the top ten passing Shedden, Chilton and Rowbottom who were squabbling in the mid pack.

The rain would begin to become more of a problem for the drivers but in the process cooled the tyres down and slowed the cars down helping the Toyota’s excessive tyre wear and heat. Contact with between the two Laser Tools Racing cars and the Restart Racing Hyundai of Chris Smiley sent the latter off the road and then gave Taylor-Smith an opportunity to pass Cook the following lap.

The Irishman would continue his progress passing former teammate Mikey Doble on lap twelve before passing a slowed Charles Rainford who had contact at Clark Curve. He would gain another two places passing both the NAPA drivers of Sam Osborne and Dan Cammish on lap fourteen after Cammish fell off the road at Paddock Hill Bend. The rain would continue to get worse which would only give Taylor-Smith more advantage on pace passing Tom Ingram for the final podium sport before getting a better run than Ash Sutton to take second place.

He would begin to hunt down Ricky Collard having much more pace than the Hyundai before making his way passed on lap seventeen into Paddock Hill Bend after being later on the brakes. Taking the lead, he would then spend the next few laps pulling a gap to the rest of the field before a red flag ended the race after multiple drivers were off at Druids on lap twenty-two. This gave Taylor-Smith his first victory in a decade in the BTCC in an excellent drive in tricky conditions.

After the race, Árón Taylor-Smith said: “Today feels so surreal, it’s like a dream. We’ve been working so hard as a team to unlock a bit more performance from this Corolla, and to have the best reward today with a victory is honestly the greatest feeling for everyone involved. We made a small tweak to the car between Races 1 & 2 and it really brought the Corolla to life. I knew within a couple of laps we were in with a chance, and from there we executed the perfect race, especially in such difficult conditions. That’s a real testament to the car, and the team, and I think I did a pretty decent job as well! It’s been a while since I’ve been on the top step of the podium, but I’m still the same driver - all I need is the car underneath me, and I feel like with Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport, we have everything we need to keep building and go on to be successful.

“A huge thanks to Mark, Craig and the whole team for their faith in me. Today’s a fantastic day, but it’s just the first step on the journey, and I can’t wait to get back out at Snetterton and build on it.”