The British Touring Car Championship went to Snetterton last weekend for the fifth meeting of the season. A very hard one for team Rob Austin Racing and their Audi.
There was a single Audi A4 NGTC at Snetterton, the #13 machine for team owner/driver Rob Austin. After two positive free practice sessions on Saturday, Rob Austin was only able to qualify his car in 14th overall, out of a 22 car grid. Issues during qualifying prevented him from showing the cars’ true pace at the circuit. Moving to Sunday things turned out to be a lot harder. In race 1 Rob Austin was forced to pit losing a lot of places, he was lucky as the race was under safety car at the moment. Back to green and the Audi started a phenomenal come back, from last to finish in a very positive 12th place. The car was quick in race 1 and the team was targeting stronger performances in the following two races. Yet again bad luck hit the only Audi team in BTCC. Rob Austin was not able to take part in race 2, quickly coming to the pits right after the warm-up lap. In race 3, again bad luck when the car seemed to be fast battling with some top guns on track. Contact forced the car out of the race with five laps to go. This ended a very frustrating weekend at Snetterton for Rob Austin Racing.
Last time out at Croft Rob Austin proved that the Audi A4 NGTC is among the strongest cars in the demanding British Touring Cars. At Snetterton bad luck prevented the team from additional strong results. The lack of sponsorship and support is now clearly what is hurting the fully privateer Audi team. All the other cars are either factory entered cars or strongly supported. It would be great to see Rob Austin Racing with extra funds and adding a top fast driver, the car has full potential of a winning machine.
Photo credit: Jacob Ebrey / Rob Austin Racing
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