Árón Taylor-Smith upbeat despite losing Oulton Park qualifying race win

Árón Taylor-Smith insisted there was still plenty to be positive about after a five-second penalty cost him victory in the British Touring Car Championship qualifying race at Oulton Park.

Taylor-Smith, who had earlier been fastest overall in timed qualifying, crossed the line first on track in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying race, but stewards penalised him for weaving behind the safety car, which dropped him to fifth in the final classification and means he will start Sunday’s opening race from the third row.

The Irishman did not try to avoid the issue. Instead, he admitted it came down to a misunderstanding of a regulation introduced last year, while accepting that the officials were entitled to act.

“It was a slight oversight, to be honest,” said Taylor-Smith to TouringCars.Net. “It’s a regulation that came into play last year and I wasn’t fully aware of it. But these things happen. A rule is a rule.

“If they’ve deemed it that I’ve gained a five-second advantage from doing it then they should give me a five second penalty, but it’s probably up to personal opinion, if it was worth five seconds to have two or three weaves. You’re in autopilot in the car sometimes, so it was just one of those things.”

Despite the setback, Taylor-Smith was encouraged by what Saturday’s pace revealed about the speed underneath him.

“The important part for me is that we had the fastest car over one lap and the car that won on track. That’s a great place to be.

“When you look at where we were last year, where we were at Snetterton, we’re making big steps.

“If someone had told me we’d be fifth for race one, I’d have bitten their hand off. It’ll be our best qualifying result in about 18 months, so I’m over the moon with that. I feel like we can do a lot from there.”

The 36-year-old is confident he can challenge for wins on Sunday as well.

“I think we can win again tomorrow,” he said. “The car is so fast. We got a great start in that one and my starts have been on-point this year. There’s no reason why we can’t jump into the top three off the line and go from there.

“We have the package that can, and has, won, so there’s no reason why we can’t do it in race one.”