• Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin races to best of sixth at Knockhill• Toyota driver seals second Independents Trophy podium of 2016• Double top 10 result confirms increasing competitiveness in BTCC • More history made with team’s first ever top 10 BTCC qualifying
Handy Motorsport continued its excellent form in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship during the annual visit to Knockhill in Scotland over the weekend, 13th/14th August, with Rob Austin taking a best result of sixth place in the third and final contest – second in the Independents Trophy.
Making more history for the Swindon team by achieving its first ever top 10 result in qualifying with the ninth fastest time, 35-year-old Austin went on to finish inside the top 10 in round 19 and also fourth in the Independents Trophy. On course for better in round 20, some robust racing ultimately bundled him back down to 12th place but Austin hit back in the third and final encounter.
Steering the No.11 Toyota Avensis into sixth place from 12th on the grid in round 21, he took away another extremely healthy haul of points. As a result, Handy Motorsport has climbed into fourth in the Independents Team Trophy, just 20 points shy of the top three and ahead of numerous multi-car entrants, and an improved ninth in the outright HiQ Teams Championship.
“It’s been a good, consistent weekend and getting our best ever qualifying was a good start”, said team boss Simon Belcher, “We had a solid first race, which put us in good shape for race two, but Rob got beaten up by everyone in the second race – there was a lot of contact.
“He delivered a really good drive in race three and especially as we always knew Knockhill favoured the rear-wheel drive cars. We’ve put on another good show and come away with a lot of points and some really strong results, we’ll have to see where we are now at Rockingham in a couple of weeks.”
Qualifying was interrupted by two stoppages, the first with less than eight minutes of the session elapsed and the second with just five minutes remaining on the clock. At the halfway point Austin was as high as fourth on the timesheets and during the final run he improved his pace further.
Ending with a best time of 51.912 seconds, securing ninth on the timesheets, he was just 0.1 seconds shy of the top six and only 0.391 seconds away from pole position – Handy’s best ever qualifying result in its three year BTCC tenure.
At the beginning of round 19 on Sunday morning, Austin made a good start and moved into eighth at Scotsman following a tangle involving Matt Neal and Adam Morgan. Swarming all over the back of Neal’s Honda, which was slow off the corner, Austin was then edged back to ninth out of the hairpin.
After a great battle with hometown racer Gordon Shedden on lap two, the Honda Civic racer did get ahead into ninth but Austin refused to let him escape. With just a few tenths of a second the difference between the pair, he remained tight in Shedden’s wheeltracks and after a late Safety Car period Austin maintained 10th place, fourth in the Independents, just 0.2 seconds behind his rival.
Making a very good start to round 20, Austin again dueled with Shedden over ninth place and tried to find a way through on the outside at Duffus Dip. As the field bunched up into Scotsman he also looked to attempt a move around the outside of Dave Newsham, but tucked back into ninth in between the Chevrolet and Honda and consolidated the position prior to the emergence of the Safety Car.
Racing resumed on lap five and the Toyota stayed in ninth until lap seven when a late dive from Shedden into Scotsman enabled the Honda to go through and opened the door for Austin to be bundled back to 12th position with his momentum compromised and car sustaining damage. The Toyota also developed a water leak as a result of the robust action.
Into lap nine, the battle in the midfield intensified further as Austin ran three abreast over the line and momentarily dropped to 14th. Back into 13th place at the first corner, Austin then closed on the group ahead and after reeling them in he passed Newsham for 12th on lap 14.
On lap 22, Austin then climbed back into 11th place as Speedworks Toyota runner Tom Ingram was edged back down the order but the Handy driver ultimately finished in 12th position after being caught and passed by the Mercedes of Morgan on the penultimate tour – the latter’s Soft tyres affording the A-Class much better late race pace, and the fastest lap to boot.
For the final race, round 21, Austin had the Soft compound Dunlop rubber and made a sensational start from the sixth row of the grid to leap up from 12th place into the top 10 before closing on Shedden. Moving up into ninth on lap two, racing then fell under Safety Car conditions on lap four.
The action resumed on lap seven and the next time around a dramatic incident involving Rob Collard and Colin Turkington resulted in both cars spinning off, elevating Austin into seventh place. Tight on the tail of the BMW of Jack Goff, Austin challenged into the hairpin at the end of lap nine and after running side-by-side over the line the Handy racer sealed the pass into the first corner to take sixth.
Chasing down multiple champion Neal, Austin closed to within just 0.4 seconds of the Honda driver but he also had to be mindful of the approaching Morgan as the lead seven cars all began to close up. On lap 22, Morgan managed to get alongside Austin on the run to the hairpin but he defended his position perfectly and went on to hold the Mercedes off to the flag on lap 27.
“We were very unfortunate to get stuck behind the two Hondas in race one, it was very frustrating as they held us up”, explained Austin, “It went to plan more at the start of race two, I got [Gordon] Shedden and then tried to go with [Matt] Neal but it didn’t last long before Shedden tried to turn me round and I lost places. It knocked the tracking out and caused some damage but we battled hard.
“In the last race we didn’t quite have the ‘bite’ with the front left tyre and couldn’t make the softs last. We got with the lead battle, the seven of us were together, but then the fronts were gone and I had to concentrate on keeping [Adam] Morgan behind. It’s been another competitive weekend.”
There are just two weeks to wait until the next instalment of BTCC action, at Rockingham in Northamptonshire, over the weekend 27th/28th August.
2016 BTCC Drivers Championship Standings:14th Rob Austin, 97pts
2016 Independents Trophy Standings:5th Rob Austin, 219pts
2016 HiQ Teams Championship Standings:9th Handy Motorsport, 100pts
2016 Independents Team Trophy Standings:4th Handy Motorsport, 233pts
