Rob Austin: “As a team the weekend was brilliant”

Despite a mixed weekend in terms of results, Rob Austin “couldn’t be happier” with how the opening race weekend of his 2016 BTCC season went.

Making his debut with Simon Belcher’s Handy Motorsport outfit, Austin struggled with pace throughout the weekend, citing a mistake on his own part with setup choices as the problem, before getting caught up in incidents hindering his race day.

“It was a bit mixed with the results, but as a team it’s been brilliant,” Austin told TouringCarTimes. “I bought a few of my guys over, the Handy Motorsport guys are ace but it takes a bit of time to gel as its our first race weekend working all together. I couldn’t be happier with how it all worked out, we’re getting along really well. I know I’ve made the right decision in what I’ve done.”

Austin could only manage 15th in qualifying, having made the wrong choice in setup direction on his first weekend as a front-wheel-drive touring car driver, but was filled with confidence seeing Tom Ingram, who’s Speedworks Motorsport team have been closely linked to Belcher’s team in the past, take pole and the first race win of the year.

“[There was] a huge amount of differences [between front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive], it’s completely different,” explained the two-time BTCC race winner. “My one mistake in the weekend unfortunately proved to be a biggy when I went the wrong way on setup, and I cocked up qualifying. I should’ve realised in FP1 that I was on the wrong direction and gone over next door and asked what setup they were running. All through testing me and Tom were just a tenth apart. That was frustrating but on the other hand it’s really reassuring to know if we get it right, that’s where we could be, a bad result is 15th rather than last year where a good result was 15th and a bad result was 25th. We’re up with the other end of the grid which is good.”

The Toyota Avensis driver was hoping for steady improvements throughout the three races, but was caught up in an incident on the opening lap which would ultimately end his race. However, a hugely impressive recovery drive would see Austin climb from 30th to 14th in race two, before going on to finish 11th in race three.

“It’s unfortunate that in race one, I don’t know exactly who it was, somebody thought they could defy the laws of physics and come from a long way back, which wasn’t so bad in itself, but it crimped the exhaust so we were a sitting duck from there on,” explained Austin. “I then got another whack, no idea how that happened but I should’ve boxed the lap before when I knew there was no chance of getting any points from it.

“Race two, I think that of all the people who’ve had to start at the back today we’ve made the most progress and it shows the whole car and package are good. We came from 30th to 14th another lap and I’d have been 13th, and past Plato, and we’re really happy with that. That one was a big learning experience, first race on front wheel drive soft tyres. Ever since I’ve been driving front wheel drive I’ve been feeling really bad for the front tyres, the poor things! I think I was a bit over cautious because we had really good pace at the end so I probably left it a bit too late.”

As the series moves on to round two at Donington Park, Austin is confident that he can turn the pace he showed at the media day test session into a strong performance and threaten the front end of the grid.

“I’m mad keen for Donington,” enthused Austin. “I’ve said to a few people that I think this is my 25th year racing and I’ve never looked forward to a season so much in my life. I’m really looking forward to the partnership between the teams, and this weekend, other than the obvious making a mistake in quali and someone else’s mistake in race one, it’s gone really well and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t see any reason why once we get a bit more experience under our belts we can’t be right up at the sharp end.”