Rob Austin eager to make up lost ground

Rob Austin says he is hopeful of making up lost ground when the BTCC heads for Donington Park this weekend for the second round of the season.

The Handy Motorsport driver showed impressive pace during the season opener at Brands Hatch but saw his hopes of adding to a strong fifth place finish in race one ended when he was excluded from race two for an incident under yellow flags with Andrew Jordan.

It means Austin heads to Donington with just a single points finish to his name from the opening three races of the season.

Despite that disappointment, the 36-year-old heads to Donington in optimistic mood, with the fast and sweeping circuit set to suit his Toyota Avensis – a fact shown by his performance during Media Day testing when he set the second quickest time.

It leaves Austin optimistic about his chances of running towards the front of the pack, with the aim being to make up ground in the title standings with three solid results.

“I think we can definitely challenge for the top five or six on the grid and we’ve got no weight in the car so that’ll help”, he said. “We have the car to be up there in qualifying, but our race pace is our strength so if we start well up the order we’ve got a great chance of some good results at Donington.”

“We showed a lot of promise [at Brands Hatch] and proved we’ve got a good package. Having said that, though, it wasn’t a perfect weekend and there are things we learned which should make us stronger still for Donington.

“All along we’ve looked at Donington as a better track for us than Brands was, so I’m looking forward to it. We need a strong weekend with a lot of points to recover the lost ground.”