Rob Austin bemoaned separate incidents with Adam Morgan and Matt Neal – describing the latter as ‘disgusting’ – as a promising weekend at Croft slipped through his fingers.
Having been forced to implement a longer first gear after the series’ organisers made a change to the regulations for rear-wheel drive cars, Austin nevertheless appeared to be running well as he set the sixth-quickest time in second practice.
But shortly afterwards he braked too late going into Clervaux and hit the tyre barrier, the resultant damage forcing his team to undertake a major rebuild of his Audi A4, which included having to source a matching window from a road car.
Austin was able to make it out in qualifying and secured an impressive tenth on the grid, but his team’s efforts went largely unrewarded as contact into the same corner on the opening lap of the day forced him to the back of the field before recovering to 13th, while a collision off the startline in race two meant he retired on the spot before a three-car clash in race three finally ended his day.
The Evesham racer believed that his woes started after his off in second practice but, speaking to TouringCars.Net, expressed his dismay towards the way in which other drivers’ actions had affected his showing.
“Absolutely gutting,” remarked Austin to TouringCars.Net, describing his weekend. “We had really good pace in the car.
“I compromised qualifying by dropping it and causing so much damage in free practice two and created a whole lot of work for my boys, hence we were only tenth.
“That’s where it started to go wrong. Then plan was to keep out of trouble and get back up there but [Adam] Morgan wasn’t having any of that – he hit me three times before he finally spun me round. I think it was just one of those things in race two off the startline, and that one with Matt Neal was absolutely disgusting.”
The incident in question occurred a lap after the restart of the day’s final race, as Austin looked to overtake Team BMR’s Warren Scott and Neal (who was also on a recovery drive through the pack after he was thrown out of the second race) into Hawthorn before contact saw all three cruise into the gravel on the exit of the corner.
But the Exocet driver was adamant that no blame should lay at his door after the collision, as he gave his account of the affair.
“For a start Matt Neal barged his way past me and I thought ‘oh fine have it, I’ll follow you through’ [the field].
“We caught up to Warren Scott and they had a bit of side-by-side at the hairpin, where I think Matt hit Warren. They were slow out of the hairpin so I had the run on both of them.
“Matt was half down the inside but Warren had the better run on the outside so I thought ‘well I’ll push Matt along’ so I pushed him down the straight to help him stay up the inside and the before the breaking zone I backed out of it and they went into the first corner side by side.
“I had a nice clean run from the racing line, tucked it in tight, they went out wide and I just drove past them both – it was a sweet manoeuvre to overtake two cars and as far as I was concerned I was past.
“As I turned into the next right, suddenly I got a whack on my left-rear corner and I couldn’t turn right anymore, and it was Matt and he didn’t lift off until I was in the wall; it was absolutely disgusting.”
Neal had apportioned blame for the crash to Austin in the immediate aftermath, but that was met with astonishment by the team owner and driver when he was informed of the three-time champion’s comments.
“It can’t be Matt Neal’s fault, can it?” said an animated Austin, with sarcastic disbelief. “What else does he want me to say? How on earth can he possibly blame somebody else for that? I was through, he just had his nose alongside my rear bumper, [and] he broke my rear wheel.
“I gave him a push down the straight to keep him up the inside of Warren, I didn’t touch him when it came to the breaking area, I’d already backed off.
“It’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.”
Austin was ultimately disappointed to leave the weekend having amassed just three points, and despite reaffirming his affection for the series, found his thoughts drawn back to the incidents that hampered his weekend.
“Yes…well yes and no,” said the 33-year-old, when asked if he could leave Croft with positivity. “We knew the pace would be there. We should have been fighting for podiums this weekend. Like I said, I dropped the ball in FP2 and that really did us in this weekend because it put us down in tenth in qualifying, [but] just to get the car out was a herculean effort from my boys.
“The set up was a little bit compromised and I think we should have been qualifying certainly within the top six, I think the car was easily capable of that, and the lap race-pace backed that up.
“I know I messed up in FP2, I have no problem with holding my hands up when I do mess up and I know race two was racing incident – these things happen every so often, I was there and as they [Dave Newsham and Fabrizio Giovanardi] got grip that gap closed – but race one and three were just appalling driving.
“I have to stress that I do love the BTCC, I love being here, I love the championship, it’s a proper world class grid, but driving like that…it’s not what it’s about. A bit of rubbing, maybe, but you don’t keep the throttle in until somebody’s in the wall.”
This guy needs to take a look in the mirror, his driving was poor all weekend.
Everyone makes mistakes but that first corner in races one (especially race one) and 3 was crazy, i was just after turn one on the day, matt neal mega forced his way in
Overall, the driving at Croft was amateurish, so many damaged cars, guess this is what happens when these boys have a reserved race prior like Oulton. Why some fans found the accidents and bashing entertaining is beyond me because at the end of the day, all that bashing may mean their favourite driver can’t make the next event. Then don’t get me started on the penalties that have been handed out and how inconsistent they are.