Simon Belcher admits the focus for his Handy Motorsport outfit at next weekend [4th-5th June]’s British Touring Car Championship meeting at Oulton Park is to improve their qualifying performance in a bit to move their race-winning driver, Rob Austin, closer to a return to the rostrum.
Austin, who last won in the series at Rockingham in 2014, has helped the Swindon-based team to their best ever start to a BTCC campaign, with retirements in the first contests at Brands Hatch and Donington Park the only blemish on a record that otherwise boasts six points scoring finishes, including the team’s first two top eight results.
The overall result sees Austin sit 14th in the Drivers Championship with a total of 38 points, just six adrift of Eurotech Racing’s Jeff Smith and with a 77 point deficit to joint standings leaders, Matt Neal and Rob Collard.
Austin has finished on the podium at Oulton Park just once during his career, now into it’s sixth consecutive campaign, having taken second during the middle race at the Cheshire venue in 2014 behind the wheel of the Audi A4, affectionately dubbed ‘Sherman’.
He managed a hat-trick of gradually improving points finishes last time out at Thruxton, despite lining up a frustrating 22nd on the grid. This fact was acknowledged by Team Principal Belcher, who believes that both driver and car are capable of better, provided they can start within the top ten markers.
“Every event so far this season we’ve achieved a best ever result as a team, so nobody can say we’re not moving forward!”
“If we start the first Oulton Park race somewhere inside the top 10, there’s no question Rob can deliver some big results from there. We’re all really looking forward to being back in action.”
“Oulton is a real drivers’ track and I know Rob’s looking forward to the weekend as much as we all are”, he added
“It’s the kind of track which allows a driver to shine, so we’ve got high hopes as we all know what a fantastic racer Rob is.”
He also pointed to the difficult nature of the Island configuration with regards to overtaking, making a strong qualifying performance even more crucial if the Toyota Avensis is to shine around the 2.2 mile circuit.
“We need to sort out qualifying, especially as overtaking at Oulton is trickier than at a lot of the circuits we visit. So far this season our race weekends have tended to start disappointingly but then end with a pleasing result – for Oulton we intend for the whole weekend to be good from the start!”
The triple header of races in Cheshire get underway at 12:17, 14:45 and 16:57 respectively.