TOYOTA RACER AUSTIN DETERMINED TO SHOWCASE HANDY MOTORSPORT'S TRUE POTENTIAL AS BTCC SEASON REACHES HALFWAY POINT
Handy Motorsport heads to the midway point of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season at Croft Circuit in North Yorkshire this coming weekend, 18th/19th June, with one focus – to capitalise on the full potential of the No.11 Toyota Avensis.
Rob Austin, one of the most popular and colourful characters in the BTCC paddock, has delivered some tremendous race performances thus far in 2016 for the Swindon team but, all too often, the category race winner has had to battle through the order after difficulties in qualifying.
The 34-year-old, in his first season of action with a front-wheel drive BTCC car, certainly made an impact from the outset in his maiden campaign with Handy Motorsport after securing the squad’s best ever finish of 11th place on the opening weekend of the season at Brands Hatch.Going on to better that at Donington Park, taking a best result of eighth position, Austin raised the bar again with seventh at Thruxton. Unfortunately, though, hopes of continuing that impressive forward momentum went somewhat awry at Oulton Park last time out, but team and driver are confident all of the pieces of the jigsaw are there to make Croft the best event of the season yet.
“We made big steps forward with the car at Oulton which unfortunately didn’t show in the race results”, commented team principal Simon Belcher, “We had a mixture of mechanical problems and some bad luck, but the car was considerably better than at the first few events. I really do feel we’re on the verge of a bigger breakthrough.
“Oulton didn’t show the true pace, especially in qualifying, but Rob raced very well and on the Soft tyre in the last race he set his fastest lap on the last lap. It proved the car is working well and we’re hoping Croft will go smoothly. It’s a circuit where the rear-wheel drive cars will be strong but our aim is to still be in the top 10 in qualifying and to work from there.”
Qualifying has certainly been the more frustrating part of each weekend for the Wiltshire squad and Oulton Park a week ago was a case in point. Despite being only 0.7 seconds shy of pole position, Austin ended up having to settle for a lower than anticipated 19th on the grid.
Consistently strong race pace, coupled with Austin’s trademark commitment and racecraft, has enabled the Pershore driver to carve his way into eight outright BTCC points finishes up to now, though, and the desire now for a top 10 qualifying performance is stronger than ever.
As well as holding sixth place in the Independents Trophy standings and 16th overall in the outright BTCC Championship, Austin’s overtaking prowess also means he is still leading the way in the Dunlop #ForeverForward standings.
The usual pair of free practice sessions will take place on Saturday, 18th June, ahead of qualifying, which will be streamed live online HERE at 16.00. On Sunday, 19th June, round 13 of the season will get underway at around 12.00, round 14 will start at 14.40 and round 15 will begin at around 17.05 – all three races will be streamed online and screened live on ITV4.
2016 BTCC Drivers Championship Standings:16th Rob Austin, 39pts
2016 Independents Trophy Standings:6th Rob Austin, 100pts
2016 HiQ Teams Championship Standings:12th Handy Motorsport, 40pts
2016 Independents Team Trophy Standings:7th Handy Motorsport, 109pts
