HMS Racing’s Rob Austin was relieved to have an ‘incident-free’ weekend in the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill, after finishing all three races in the points, including taking ninth in the second race.
After an up-and-down season which has seen Austin embroiled in mid-pack incidents and misfortune, the Alfa Romeo driver was relieved to have an incident-free weekend in Scotland, despite the wet weather making life difficult.
Although Austin demonstrated front-running pace on Saturday, with fourth and fifth fastest times in first and second practice respectively, he ended qualifying in 13th after having a lap disallowed for exceeding the track limits.
A post-qualifying engine change was then required for Austin, and he went into a wet raceday with a new Swindon powerplant in his car.
In the wet opening encounter progress was difficult and Austin took just 14th, having lost out to Brett Smith, Rory Butcher and Tom Chilton.
The second race initially saw Austin move up to 11th, but that became ninth after post-race exclusions for leading drivers Ash Sutton and Tom Ingram.
The final race saw Austin miss out on the reverse grid but nevertheless take home points for 13th, having lost out in a competitive multi-car mid-pack battle.
“I think if the races had been dry we had really good pace, solid top ten pace, so there would’ve been an opportunity for more in terms of the results perhaps”, said Austin.
“In the wet we were lacking under braking, we seemed to have a bit of a weak spot there – I think half the problem was me and half the car, I didn’t have the confidence I needed so we were vulnerable there.
“I was happy with race one and in race two the car felt a chunk better with some changes. Instead of trying to hang on I knew we could move forward – but you couldn’t see anything! The amount of water hanging in the air was crazy, so I was kind of relieved to finish.
“The new surface at Knockhill is mega, it provided a lot of grip and the drainage was very good; we didn’t have any aquaplaning.
“We went further with the changes to the car for race three, and possibly got it a bit wrong. We were really lacking front-end for the first half of the race, but as everyone started to struggle with tyres later on we had good pace.”
Austin admitted afterwards that he was relieved to have had no significant incidents or bad luck for the first time in several months.
“Compared to what’s happened recently with some of the bad luck, it’s been good to have a relatively good, incident-free weekend.”