{"id":2506,"date":"2017-01-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-04-29T09:56:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:56:24","slug":"consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/micksgarageblog.org\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Consistency is king for Smith at Oulton Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Oulton Park, Cheshire, UK \u2013 <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_233135026\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Monday 8th June 2015<\/span><\/span>:<\/strong> The 2015 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship moved to Oulton Park for rounds 10, 11 and 12 and \u00c1r\u00f3n Smith was hoping he could emulate his 2014 performance where he secured Team BMR\u2019s maiden race victory. The Irishman was coming off the back of a mixed weekend at the high-speed Thruxton some three weeks previous.    Smith got his weekend off to a strong start with the fourth fastest time in <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_233135027\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Saturday<\/span><\/span>morning\u2019s free practice. With a sense of changeable conditions in the air, Smith utilised the second and final free practice session of the day to try a number of setup adjustments to his Team BMR Volkswagen. Finishing the session in seventh, \u00c1r\u00f3n remained confident that he had a strong package for <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_233135028\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Saturday<\/span><\/span> afternoon\u2019s qualifying.    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imagetin.com\/images\/micksgarage-ie\/421a2477-0\/oulton-2_4edf4b.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-2507\" src=\"https:\/\/www.imagetin.com\/images\/micksgarage-ie\/421a2477-0\/oulton-2-1024x683_78c2da.jpg\" alt=\"Oulton Park enjoyed a bumper crowd on Sunday as \u00c1r\u00f3n left Ches\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/><\/a>    With dark clouds looming, many teams had one eye on the sky as qualifying got under way. Smith was unlucky to have his fastest lap removed during the session for track limits, but still managed to secure the seventh fastest time of the session, narrowly starting his final flying lap just before the chequered flag.    <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_233135029\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Sunday<\/span><\/span> morning was greeted with glorious sunshine at the Cheshsire circuit, which had attracted a now customary large crowd. Starting from row four, Smith got a good start and immediately focused his attentions on passing teammate Colin Turkington. Running on Dunlop\u2019s Soft Tyre, \u00c1r\u00f3n\u2019s intentions were clear that he was out to secure the fastest lap of the race towards his race two starting position. With Turkington suffering from brake problems, Smith was promoted to sixth as he now set about chasing down Gordon Shedden. A superb run out of the final corner allowed Smith to pass Shedden into Old Hall Corner and move up to fifth. Despite a series of blistering laps eating into their extensive advantage, \u00c1r\u00f3n couldn\u2019t catch the lead group and took the chequered flag in fifth.    Starting race two again from seventh, Smith was keen to capitalise on Dunlop\u2019s standard tyre in the warmer afternoon track conditions. A good start allowed him to pass Jeff Smith into the first corner. With Adam Morgan hot on his heels, \u00c1r\u00f3n played the defensive game early in the race before under steer issues with his Passat CC allowed both Morgan and Tordoff to slip past on lap 10. However on the final lap, contact up ahead between the BMW\u2019s of Andy Priaulx and Rob Collard promoted Smith to seventh place at the finish.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-2508\" src=\"https:\/\/www.imagetin.com\/images\/micksgarage-ie\/421a2477-0\/oulton-park-1024x683_9d0703.jpg\" alt=\"\u00c1r\u00f3n's best result of the weekend came in race one finishing 5\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/>    Just missing out on the reverse grid draw for race three, Smith made it three seventh place starts from three races for the final race of the weekend. Acting as the meat in a Team BMR sandwich between teammates Jason Plato and Colin Turkington, \u00c1r\u00f3n made a strong start to the race and put former champion Plato under pressure early in proceedings. Just past the midway point in the race, Colin Turkington found a way past as Smith continued to struggled with the front of his Volkswagen Passat. Keen to secure a trio of consistent points finishes, Smith maintained his seventh position to the flag.    <strong>\u00c1r\u00f3n Smith &#8211; #40 Team BMR Volkswagen Passat CC:<\/strong>  \u201cIt\u2019s been a funny old weekend really as we seem to have stuck to the number seven for most of it! Overall it hasn\u2019t been a bad weekend. Our last couple of weekends have been a bit up and down, so this weekend has been good in terms of securing three good finishes towards the championship. Oulton is a tricky track to make up places and qualifying didn&#8217;t exactly hook up for me. From that point onwards it was a case of delivering three sensible drives and collecting a heap of points. I&#8217;ve left Oulton happy with my performance and we&#8217;ve some testing planned before Croft which will be a big positive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Consistency is king for Smith at Oulton Park<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.6 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Consistency is king for Smith at Oulton Park - The Filter Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/micksgarageblog.org\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Consistency is king for Smith at Oulton Park\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Consistency is king for Smith at Oulton Park\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/micksgarageblog.org\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Filter Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-31T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-29T08:56:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Filter Blog Team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Filter Blog Team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Filter Blog Team\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/80eb1fc10f37196ea99491bd7ba63323\"},\"headline\":\"Consistency is king for Smith at Oulton Park\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-31T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-29T08:56:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":660,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.imagetin.com\\\/images\\\/micksgarage-ie\\\/421a2477-0\\\/oulton-2-1024x683_78c2da.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\\\/#respond\"]}],\"copyrightYear\":\"2017\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/micksgarageblog.org\\\/consistency-is-king-for-smith-at-oulton-park\\\/\",\"name\":\"Consistency is king for Smith at Oulton Park - 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