Gavin Smith (racing driver)

Gavin Smith (born 15 September 1977) is an Irish racing driver. His younger brother, Árón Taylor-Smith, is also a racing driver who races in the British GT Championship, and formerly the British Touring Car Championship.

Born in Dublin, Smith won Ireland's Fiat Punto championship in 1998, winning 12 times, before trying single-seaters for the next year. In 2000, he was in British Formula Renault, before moving up to the Scholarship class (using year old cars) of Formula 3.^{[citation needed]}

However, it has been in touring cars that Smith has raced since 2003. He had two seasons in the SEAT Cupra Championship, winning four races and coming fifth overall in 2004. By this time, he had already made his BTCC debut in a one-off at Mondello Park, and he tested a VX Racing Vauxhall Astra in early 2005. After impressing the team he earned a drive in their third car, which the team openly admitted is awarded to the best driver who can bring enough money to fund it themselves, rather than necessarily the best available driver.

Smith was tenth overall in 2005, although the fact that he was retained for 2006, while Colin Turkington was fired after finishing 6th, tells its own story. However, he did show signs of improvement late in the season: up until round 9 his best qualifyings were a pair of fourths, and his best race result was a 5th place, whereas in the last 2 meetings he scored a second and a third, as well as qualifying 2nd in the last round.

In 2006, Smith improved to eighth overall, but lost his drive for 2007 when VX Racing downsized to a two-car team due to the pressures of preparing new-specification Vauxhall Vectras. With three rounds of the 2007 season to go, it was announced that Smith would join GR Asia in alongside Adam Jones, driving a 2007 spec SEAT León. He finished 13th Overall.

Smith's younger brother, Árón, is also a racing driver and made his BTCC début in 2011 for the Triple Eight team, which previously competed under the VX Racing name. Árón raced for Redstone Racing in 2012.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1 point awarded in first race) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap – 1 point awarded all races) (* signifies that driver lead race for at least one lap – 1 point awarded all races)