SWINDON’S DUO Motorsport with HMS Racing team endured a bittersweet visit to Oulton Park Island Circuit at the weekend, two points finishes being tempered by a retirement in the last of three races of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship round.

Having started the weekend superbly by setting the pace in opening free practice, driver Rob Austin more than confirmed the excellent potential of the squad’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta and, after drawing pole position for the final race, a podium bid was certainly on the cards.

Although losing out at the start to the BMW of Rob Collard, Austin shadowed his rival during the first half of the race and maintained second as the chequered flag neared. With only three laps to go, though, the Alfa dramatically slowed due to a broken diff.

Denied a season’s best result, Austin still departed after finishing in the top 10 in race one and taking an improved seventh place in the second encounter before running at the front in race three.

“Although I’m still licking my wounds, there is a lot more to come from our Alfa, which is very exciting," he said.

“We have the newest car on the grid, it’s done the least miles and we don’t have multiple engineers and another driver to share data with, so the progress we’re making is impressive.

“There are still a huge amount of positives to take away from Oulton. We were fast this weekend and really feel we have turned another corner with the car and the set-up and I see no reason why we can’t continue this form.

“Race three was disappointing, the driveshaft is a control component we have to use and unfortunately the diff failed, but I can’t think of another mechanical failure we’ve had.

“There’s nobody to blame, the team worked brilliantly all weekend and everyone did a fantastic job. To have been so competitive in the final race, keeping up with Rob (Collard), who was on soft tyres in one of the quickest cars, and pulling away from Andy Jordan in another BMW was good going. It shows we had fantastic pace and that’s what we take forward.”

Austin is seventh overall in the standings, while Matt Neal of Swindon’s Halfords Yuasa Racing Honda works team is second overall after finishing second and fifth at Oulton Park.

Croft in North Yorkshire hosts the fifth meeting of the season next weekend (June 23-24).