Airwaves Racing left a hard weekend in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship with just three top ten finishes.

The Wrotham based outfit were hoping to build on a successful outing last time out and fight for podium places but it just wasn’t to be.

In qualifying the top 16 places were separated by just half a second highlighting just how closely matched the top teams are.

It meant that Aron Smith started in P11 with his teammate in P16 meaning that they had it all to do as the racing got underway.

Knockhill is a notoriously hard circuit to overtake on and that was evident in race one as Aron Smith made up one place to finish in tenth place. Teammate Mat Jackson made up four places to finish just outside the coveted top ten in P12.

Speaking about his race weekend, Aron said: “It’s a real shame that we didn’t get to see the potential in the car this weekend and qualifying could have gone our way but didn’t quite. We were looking really good for race two but cruel luck got in the way unfortunately.

“We have a couple of weeks break now to concentrate on Rockingham which has similar characteristics to Snetterton where we have a more proven set up.”

Race two didn’t go to plan for Smith as an electrical fault on the start line meant that he didn’t get past the start finish line and had to spend the entire race watching on from the pit garages.

Jackson by contrast had a better race as he chased down multiple drivers including Tom Onslow-Cole and Dave Newsham, he was in P9 at the halfway point of the race. He then battled for the second half of the race with Sam Tordoff in the MG, but couldn’t quite find a way past and he had to settle for P9 and the team’s second top ten of the day.

Giving his thoughts on the race weekend, Jackson said: “Knockhill is always a challenging circuit with very little opportunities for over taking.  We’ve made good progress with the car throughout the weekend and have come away with three strong points finishes. We have some positives to take away and work towards Rockingham and look forward to a strong weekend there.”

The final race of the day would prove just as challenging for the Airwaves Racing duo, with stop/start action during the frenzied finale. Jackson looked to be a strong contender for a high placed finish during the opening laps with his position boosted by an early safety car appearance. Unfortunately as has been the case on a number of occasions this season, an over-zealous move by Nick Foster in the eBay Motors BMW forced the #7 Focus precariously off track – resulting in Jackson having to take evasive action to recover his position.

With Gordon Shedden’s Honda forced out of the running with a dramatic fire in the closing laps of the race and rac one and two winner Colin Turkington later excluded from the result due to a technical infringement; Jackson was promoted to P7.
Smith showed impressive pace and race craft managing to battle his way through the field from the back of the grid up into fifteenth before a coming together with Bushell’s, Cruze forced him off the track at Scotman’s corner and into the pits to replace a punctured tyre.  Despite this foray, Smith did well to re-join the race swiftly and end the final race of the day in P16.

By contrast Liam Griffin in the Addison Lee Motorbase S2000 enjoyed his best win for a number of meetings with two Jack Sears Trophy wins in the three races.

He almost made it three from three but for an altercation on track with Team HARD’s Kieran Gallagher and resulting in Griffin having to retire from the race and handing victory to Lea Wood.

Talking about his return to form Griffin said: “Two great wins but still a disappointing end to what could have been a very, very good weekend. I’ve had Lea (Wood) behind me for the last three races and dealt with it fine but for Gallagher to come out and do that is just unnecessary.

“I would have been two points away from Lea and now I’m four, it just makes it a whole lot harder to close the gap and make the championship challenge at the end. Race three was there for the taking, but unfortunately Gallagher put paid to that. I’m a bit annoyed to be fair.”

The team has three weeks until they can get back out on track again at the Rockingham Speedway and challenge for the podium once more.